tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47779177883007303782024-03-22T17:17:31.260-07:00The news from David S. WiederWiederlaw legal blog for plain folkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14714040614753389922noreply@blogger.comBlogger125125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-8590638283272596802024-03-22T17:16:00.000-07:002024-03-22T17:16:35.569-07:00Democracy in America<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Mitch McConnell shares the ignominy of Donald Trump for doing more shredding our democracy than any other of the conservative actors of our time.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">McConnell thought Donald Trump was in his political death throes after Trump’s slim escape from conviction in his Senate impeachment trial. After voting not to convict, McConnell passed the task off to the Justice department, which under Merrick Garland, diddled about prosecuting a clearly criminal insurrectionist and his enraged band of miscreants. “Trump will be held accountable by the justice system,” McConnell asserted. Maybe not. Trump is trying to run out the clock.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">When Al Gore lost the election of 2000, the Supreme Court throwing the election to Bush, Gore dutifully stepped aside “for the good of the country.” How wistful, even naïve, that seems today, one would ever thinking that Trump would ever do anything for the good of the country. Instead, he puts country through the worst constitutional agonies since the prelude to a civil war in which 700,000 Americans died slaughtering each other. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">In 1857, the Supreme Court issued the infamous Dred Scott decision, denying essentially that black people are humans, instead they are chattels, like cows or dogs. Roger Taney, chief justice, owned slaves and was apparently determined to keep them. His decision was supported by other members of a slave-owner influenced court.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">The Taney court was, for the time, a national disgrace, contributing to national anger, the court repealing the Missouri compromise by judicial fiat. The Missouri compromise was an attempt to balance the entry of slave states with free states entering the Union. Dred Scott enraged abolitionist and popular opinion, eventually electing Abraham Lincoln.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">The Roberts court will, in 100 years be looked upon the same way as we look on Taney’s abortionate decision (forgive the pun). This court has in short order, repealed a woman’s right to reproductive choice, exacerbated the presence of dark money in politics, and arrogated unto itself the rewriting of the 14<sup>th</sup> Amendment that had clearly barred insurrectionists from holding office. Add to this, corrupt practices and gifts received by the justices the largesse of which comes from billionaires having potential interests to be protected by their judicial friends, including Clarence Thomas, whose wife helped fund the festive party at the Capitol on January 6<sup>th</sup>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">And let us not forget the Roberts court’s evisceration of the voting rights act, that had required those great bastions of civil liberties, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi to preclear voting districts to protect minorities. We have done all the civil rights work necessary, says Justice Roberts, all is well, no further protections needed. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Justice Samuel Alito, that paradigm of intolerance, cited that a 17<sup>th</sup> century precedent in English common law that criminalized the killing of a fetus. Originalism run wild, authored by a religious zealot. He forgot to mention the burning at the stake part.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 3pt;">The sad part of all of this is that the present court comprises justices appointed by two presidents elected by a minority of American voters. By a president who lost the popular vote to Al Gore, and a president who lost the popular vote by millions to Hillary Clinton. Abetted by leader McConnell who would not even consider Merick Garland because it was too close to an election, except when it was Amy Coney Barrett, who needed a quick confirmation close to the next election. Public sentiment be damned. So when one speaks of American exceptionalism, it is in the pejorative sense. Frank Underwood would be proud.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 3pt;">Moreover, the coming election will have two candidates, neither of whom inspires much confidence. One is an unhinged criminal defendant trying, with the aid of his judicial friends, to stay out of jail, and the other who projects being feeble and frail. Perhaps he is not, but that is the popular perception, and perception being reality, these days, you fill in the blanks. All of this to be decided by a few thousand voters in battleground states. The Electoral College says, why should voters on the coasts where most of the people live have an equal say with rural overrepresented voters? After all, 500,000 voters in North Dakota should have two senators, just like the 40,000,000 people who live in California.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"> That’s the way it was in 1789; it should stay the same in 2024, don’t you think?<span style="border: 1pt solid rgb(229, 231, 235); color: #e8e8e6; font-family: "Segoe UI", sans-serif; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="border: 1pt solid rgb(229, 231, 235); color: #e8e8e6; font-family: "Segoe UI", sans-serif; padding: 0in;">.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-31703111570149984172024-02-22T07:11:00.000-08:002024-02-22T07:11:17.068-08:00Obsessions<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">War clouds are festooning over Europe. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"> In August 1914, Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, famously said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime,” announcing the beginning of the Great War. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">After losing in 1918, Germany was forced to disarm and pay backbreaking reparations to the Allies under the Versailles Treaty. This planted the seeds of the next war. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">In anger over the treaty, Hitler obsessed with Germany’s defeat, stoking public opinion, playing the humiliation of the German volk, incorporating it in his rise to power, marked by enormous illegal rearmament. Territorial demands followed. In 1939, came the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Vladimir Putin is also obsessed--with Russian humiliation by the greatest tragedy of his life: The collapse of the Soviet Union. This low-down KGB blood-soaked thug rose to the pinnacle of power in a country that never enjoyed democratic traditions. A thousand years of authoritarian culture-- Czars, Bolsheviks, and now a pitiless dictatorship.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Putin’s agenda is as clear as a moonlit night on a mountaintop. He craves weakening NATO, perhaps invading a small NATO country like Lithuania, daring the west to challenge him. He wants to expand his empire to enhance his flailing economy. Poles are terrified. Lithuanians, too. They think the United States will not come to their aid if they are attacked. It might not. If Ukraine falls, they are next. Maybe us too.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">GOP house members are also obsessed. Their hard right obsesses about impoverished migrants purportedly flooding the country; they want to trade crucial aid to Ukraine as though it were some sick parlor game. House Republicans obsess how they can support an unhinged criminal defendant in his own obsession--staying out of jail.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">In 1938, Winston Churchill stood in the House of Commons, presciently obsessing that failure to rearm would lead to war. No one listened. He was a warmonger. Instead, Neville Chamberlain, obsessed with “peace in our time,” naively signed the Munich agreement giving away the Sudetenland; one year to the date before Hitler invaded Poland, starting the bloodiest war in history. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Europe faces a new fascist threat, the murderous Vladimir Putin, beginning to reverse his initial failures in Ukraine. European leaders are panicking. Europe has not rearmed, nor has it mobilized. War is coming without more force to stop a revanchist Russia, with a leader whose Czarist obsessions are both pathological and propelled by his other obsession--being deposed or assassinated. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Germany needs to massively rearm and to possibly institute conscription. France as well. They need to exponentially increase defense expenditures. Some experts think it will take 5 years to reach parity and by then it might be too late. Russia has one thing Ukraine has not. Overwhelming manpower. The same manpower that overwhelmed Hitler’s legions. The same manpower that defeated Napoleon. If Ukraine falls, war will surely come to us. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Any Russian opposition is crushed by an avalanche of propaganda and fear. Navalny murdered. Others tossed out windows, shot, poisoned, wings falling off their airplane. Putin’s agenda is audacious, abetted by perverted congressional politics and Trumpian attention to his own criminality.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Putin sees NATO as a threat to his imperial ambitions. He seeks to destroy the alliance which has preserved the world order since the end of World War II. With Trump’s help that could happen.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">The US should immediately pass the aid to Ukraine Bill, which only represents 2-3% of our defense budget. Not likely to happen, but reinstitution of military conscription in the US and in Europe could send a strong signal to Moscow. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">This sounds alarmist, but Lenin himself said, “Push forward the bayonet. If you find steel, pull back. If you find soft flesh, push forward.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">Lenin is Putin’s hero. The free world should obsess about that.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-21267986686734196962024-02-10T13:31:00.000-08:002024-02-10T13:31:11.746-08:00The Oral Argument from Hell.<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The Oral Argument from hell.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The idea that Trump might not be evicted from the ballot, judging from the discussion at oral arguments this week before the Supreme Court is supremely depressing. Trump continues to plague America like the ineradicable odor of a skunk.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">After all, the constitutional scholars on television had pretty much agreed that Trump should not be a choice for a befuddled and divided electorate after all the prognostications about how Section III of the 14<sup>th</sup> Amendment clearly states that Trump is disqualified, after the incitement of an insurrection, after people died, after a committee of congress presented all the damning evidence, after courageous witnesses risked their lives and safety to speak the truth, after a trial found Trump guilty of insurrection and the Supreme Court of Colorado found Trump an insurrectionist and held him clearly disqualified from office, the justices of the United States Supreme Court are mentally masturbating whether disqualifying Trump would cause a disparate result in the various states, with some keeping him off the ballot, and other states doing the contrary. The Justices asked questions about procedural minutia, hinting that they would avoid the issue like a root canal, and let him stay.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I hope that they rule on the briefs and the overwhelming historical analysis, and that oral argument was not an omen of judicially avoiding the lessons of history. Court rulings in the past have caused national disruption, such as Brown v. Board of Education, but then the court was courageous and fair.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">No one, not even the liberal justices, expressed any concern about preserving the Republic. Or the intent of the framers. There was no discussion of the historicity of the 14<sup>th</sup> Amendment, designed to keep insurrectionists off the ballot. Con men can be popular. And Trump has announced his revenge agenda. I think the court should believe him.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This did not seem to bother the justices when they overruled Roe v. Wade. The states are busy enacting different rules and creating a hodgepodge of laws, most of which are detrimental to the health and safety of young women. Or when they gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder allowing enlightened places like Mississippi to disenfranchise as many African American voters as possible.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">“Why were there no prosecutions after the Civil War and the 14<sup>th</sup> Amendment?” asked Clarence Thomas. Well, because there was post war amnesty passed in Congress in 1872. Guess you did not learn that from Harlan Crowe. And because no one else and no President ever caused an insurrection since then, until Donald Trump.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-16730739148370847162024-01-06T11:28:00.000-08:002024-01-06T11:28:06.908-08:00Welcome 2024 (or not)<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">2024 promises to be a year filled with high and low expectations, judicial decisions affecting American democracy, trials of one especially ignominious former President, war in Europe, war in the Middle East, and a host of other undesirable scenarios, including a battle between two gerontocrats for an office that turns people gray and demands youthful vigor. Except they already are gray, if Trump shuns the hairdresser. Trump used his vigor to pour fuel on a bunch of Fox news brainwashed pseudo patriots, demonstrating their loyalty to the constitution by invading the capitol and hitting capitol police with shovels and crowbars. “Hang Mike Pence,” patriotism writ large. Biden has shown his vigor by announcing today that Trump is a threat to democracy, his voice modulating between a normal rasp and a shout. He needs to get out and talk to young people.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Over the past few years, it seems like people do not care about threats to democracy. They have bought into the “good-old-days-were-better” argument.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">But were they really? Yeah, we had Elvis and the Beatles, Cecil B. DeMille, and “out of my cold dead hands,” Charlton Heston, but we also had Segregation, the Cuban missile crisis and nuclear brinksmanship. Civil rights were on the back burner. Forget about accommodations for disabled people or being inside a restaurant with clean air. After all, tobacco was good for your T-Zone, said the Lucky Strike hucksters, as they lied about tobacco’s dangers, or that your T-Zone might have to be irradiated or need a voice box and a hole in your neck or your tongue removed. You get the picture.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The Supreme Court is about to rule whether Trump should be kicked off the ballot.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">It’s rich that Trump argues that kicking him off the ballot will disenfranchise millions of Americans when he tried to send his slate of fake electors to the capitol. The argument is that it is anti-democratic to deprive the voters of their say. Well, so is not allowing felons to vote, not allowing people under 35 to be President, not allowing Johnny rebs to return to office, and keeping a narcissistic charlatan from being qualified to run again. Protecting minority rights is also not democratic. That is why we have a constitution and a bill of rights. A government of Laws, not men (or women or of whatever pronoun you want.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Some people think we have made progress in perfecting the Union. In the 1950s Americans were petrified about the communist (Soviet) menace. Children in elementary schools did drills hiding under their desks to avoid being vaporized by an H-Bomb. Black school children had to be escorted to class by the national guard. Racism was rampant. “Segregation forever,” cried George Wallace. George got a lot of votes until someone shot him. Everyone has a gun, remember? And let’s not go back to a civil war or enslavement, which Nikki Haley did not mention and had to be called out upon. Nikki wants Trump voters.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">People nowadays are concerned that we have no attention span, purloined by the little screen we carry around, people sitting at the dinner table, their phones at the ready, to look up a fact or check a movie while their real-life companions are ignored, feeling the frustration of abandonment. How can we solve global problems when we do not talk to each other? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">If Franklin Roosevelt were running for office today, CNN would be doing close up pictures of his leg braces and wheelchair, asking questions if he had the stamina to be President. FDR was only 63 when he died in Warm Springs of a cerebral hemorrhage caused by blood pressure of over 220. He was running a war, dealing with Churchill, Stalin, and the Manhattan project. Trump is running so he can avoid the slammer.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Biden might be old, but he is not feeble. He only <i>seems</i> feeble. You do not have to be quick to be President. You only must be quick to participate in a Presidential debate with a deranged lunatic. Being President, you need to sit with your army of advisors and have the wisdom of years of experience to make wise decisions. Things have gone well for Joe, aside from his Hunter problem. Joe has known pain, is compassionate, and the respect of foreign leaders he has known for many years. That seems like enough to be President.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">On the other hand, Trump is blessed with many years of fighting court battles, screwing workers, removing classified documents from the White House, defending himself against rape charges, fraud accusations, and 91 felony counts. Remember the Obama birth certificate scam? Any other candidate would have stepped aside for the good of the country. Not Trump. He is running to stay out of jail and to make America great again. This is like Captain Hook taking down the jolly roger and putting up the stars and stripes.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-89020734497673109012023-12-17T07:34:00.000-08:002023-12-17T07:34:36.053-08:00Fundamentalism and the Supreme Court.<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Catholic fundamentalist Samuel Alito is not a fan of Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was arguably a deist or a theist, or maybe even a Unitarian. His statute for religious freedom in Virginia was a template for the separation of church and state, later expressed in the Constitution. His views about keeping the preachers away from government are well known. He was an enslaver, and a father of enslaved children, but his ideas about religion have been soundly reaffirmed in our republic—until now. The separation of church and state has allowed different religions to thrive in all the states of the Union. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And now, the Supreme Court of the United States has anointed itself as a priestly guardian of public morality and even worse, the reproductive freedom of women, to the point of reckless endangerment.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Everyone my age has heard stories about “fallen women,” back-alley abortions, and ruined lives. We have heard<span class="msoDel" style="color: #ff4b4b; text-decoration: line-through;"><del cite="mailto:David%20Wieder" datetime="2023-12-16T18:33"> </del></span>stories of women dying in illicit, filthy, abortion clinics unstaffed by medical personnel, and seen Hollywood movies of the era depicting melodramatic, but true, tragic denouements to unwanted pregnancies resulting from rapes, incest, and medical emergencies.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Donald Trump, a man who never got a majority vote from the American people, appointed not two, but three extremist justices, creating a judicial Frankenstein, a renegade Supreme Court; justices rushed through by Mitch McConnell, who would not even meet with Merrick Garland to offer a balance to the court, lost by Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Let me digress for one paragraph: Mitch McConnell, could have, but refused, to whip votes or vote himself for Trump’s well-deserved impeachment conviction, followed up his vote with a sanctimonious speech about Trump’s possibly being held accountable by the courts…well you know how that has worked out.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">But let’s get back to the Supremes. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Five robed Catholic religious fanatics have pilfered women of their constitutional right to reproductive freedom, forged over 50 years ago by Roe v. Wade. Justice Alito, an ideologue par excellence, conducted Machiavellian palace intrigue to rush through his obfuscating opinion as revealed in a recently published article by Adam Liptak and Jodi Kantor of the New York Times. This, including the arguable leaking of the opinion early to cement the votes of his colleagues who might have been wavering over this ill-thought monumental injustice.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Women are now fleeing from unfree states to free states, like the 1850s when slavecatchers roamed across state lines to capture runaway slaves. Ok. No slave catchers today. Only regressive state legislatures and salivating Attorneys General like Ken Paxton of Texas threatening to sue or imprison women who travel from their home states to seek health care. Physicians fear making health care decisions for their patients. They might go to prison for 99 years or lose their license. Forget that a woman whose fetus has a fatal anomaly or that the woman could possibly die. <span class="msoDel" style="color: #ff4b4b; text-decoration: line-through;"><del cite="mailto:David%20Wieder" datetime="2023-12-16T18:33"><o:p></o:p></del></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span class="msoDel" style="color: #ff4b4b; text-decoration: line-through;"><del cite="mailto:David%20Wieder" datetime="2023-12-16T18:33"><o:p> </o:p></del></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">There was a time when burning people at the stake for apostacy was de riguer. Now prosecuting them for protecting their lives or their sanity is the fashion in Texas and some other states that have become bastions of religious fundamentalism.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The problem of course, is that the law is not purely a religious undertaking. It is a mélange of both. If it were not, we would be living in a theocracy, like Iran. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">What the anti-abortion crowd truly believes is that life begins at conception. And it cannot be truly argued otherwise. But since Roe v. Wade, it has been judicial practice that prior to viability, that the social implications of abortion far outweigh the religious proscriptions. So, yes, there is a profound difference between truly held beliefs and what has evolved in modern legal thought. Therein lies the dilemma. The incurable malady. Religion or socially desirable mores. Moderation or extremism. 70% of the American public are in favor of moderation.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">What Justice Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett lied about, that they were committed to <i>stare decisis</i>, or long settled law during confirmation hearings, undermines not only their credibility, but their place in history, like the infamous Justice Roger Taney, when he authored the Dredd Scott decision, denying human rights to a Black man. Even worse, also on the wrong side of history, Alito deserves a special place in judicial infamy for his unmitigated ability to alter modern legal thought into some contorted, thinly veiled religious rationalization actually citing 16<sup>th</sup> century law. A fall back to the good old days. Those days were not so good, after all, despite what Samuel Alito thinks. And no, he is no Jeffersonian. Not even close.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-19820141896242705572023-10-19T04:22:00.001-07:002023-10-19T04:22:36.215-07:00Religion and Real Estate<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Religion and Real Estate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The guilt of cruising the Aegean as an American and as a Jew while fellow Jews are undergoing the most gruesome assault since the Holocaust makes me wonder why people pray to God. They thank God for good things and call it “providence,” and dismiss the bad, as though some beneficent entity is controlling their lives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Islam arose around 624 AD, after the much older Jewish monotheism arose in the levant some 3-4,000 years ago, depending upon which source you believe. Early Jewish religion had elements of polytheism, worshipped goddesses and a cult of mother goddesses, according to historian/anthropologist Raphael Patai. In the 300,000 or so years since homo sapiens emerged in Africa, organized religion has only existed for about 4,000 years, a flash of light in terms of the 4.5 billion years in the history of Earth. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Before organized religion, primitives danced around fires and assumed direct relations with the spirits. Shamans then arrogated for themselves the sole ability to communicate with the spirits and therefore control over the populace. “Only I can communicate with God.” Sound familiar? You had to go through them to be safe. Some grievance politicians do the same. Get the picture?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Scientists have predicted that in another 250 million years the sun will incinerate our planet. Meanwhile we are doing a pretty good job of doing it ourselves. We had better hope Elon Musk’s plans for moving humanity to other worlds works out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">So, let’s share a little perspective on the Arab-Jewish/Israeli wars.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">People have circulated maps showing Palestine as it was before the time of Christ; true believers rely on that map to justify claims on the land. They say Palestinians did not exist at that time and therefore, Jews have a superior claim. There were Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Egyptians and of course, wars over the land among clashing empires and tribes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The troubles began with the rise of monotheism, which automatically dismissed other faiths, all of which are constructs anyway. Ours is the only way to God, they say. Death to the others. Let’s take their land.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Israel is supposed to be a homeland for Jews. Well, it has been a very inhospitable homeland ever since partition. When the Ottoman empire collapsed at the end of World War I, the Versailles treaty created the conditions for what followed—another war, even worse than the first one. And the carving up of the British and French colonies and mandates at the end of World War II perpetuated the conditions for what is happening today, by promising the same land to two different tribes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Are the territorial disputes tied to religion or are the religions tied to the disputes? Or is it a distinction without a difference? Or is it simply about real estate? Pretty complicated stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">New surveys say that approximately 26% of Americans do not believe in a supernatural being that can change the course of history or respond to the pleas of a suffering humanity. Evangelicals are among the strongest supporters of Israel, because in the end of days, Christ will return or some such other theory. And the theory involves the Holy Land being in possession of the Jews. It all sounds, excuse the term, Medieval. One wonders if a professed Atheist can ever be elected to political office in America. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">No one denies the soothing aspects of a religious undertaking, and I suppose that is reason enough to feel some comfort that after one dies, they will go to some either defined or undefined place, heaven or hell, purgatory, or some other destination conceived by priests, or those others who need to provide an explanation for the inexplicable. But religion should not justify demands for real estate and competing claims for land over which bloody wars have existed for millennia.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">There are only three countries in the Middle East that have been around for centuries: Persia, which has devolved into a fanatical, theocratic Iran, Egypt, which is a military dictatorship, and Turkey, a putative democracy, the remnant of the Ottoman Empire and the selection of the wrong allies during <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">World War I. The rest are political creations arising from colonial enterprises, and a Jewish tribe with the greatest present date moral claim on a small part of the land (because of the Holocaust.) Israel is so small compared to its Arab neighbors.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Why can’t they just leave her alone?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Unfortunately, in historical terms, the comparatively new remnants of the colonial empires’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">division of the land in the most awful, blood-soaked 20<sup>th</sup> century, the situating of Israel between the former empires of Persia and Egypt and the bloody competition for a relatively small strip of land is arguably the result of tribal imperatives which have no end in sight, fueled in great part by religious imperatives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-24985966419072887702023-08-14T14:59:00.000-07:002023-08-14T14:59:25.856-07:00Pardon Trump? Never!<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Aaron Burr, the vice-president of the United States was tried for treason for aiding the British during the American Revolution. Acquitted in 1807, Burr spent the rest of his life trying in vain to rebuild his reputation. His personal reputation destroyed, he spent the rest of his life vainly trying to rehabilitate himself by writing a self-serving memoir and wandering the US and Europe. He died in obscurity in 1836 on Statin Island, of all places.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Richard Nixon, pardoned by Gerald Ford, skulked off to California, and appeared in television interviews attempting to recalibrate his reputation and legacy. His crimes in office consisted of dirty tricks and covering up a third-rate burglary of the Democratic National Committee. Nixon had a famous enemies list and sabotaged an early attempt to end the Viet Nam war in order to advance his election prospects in 1972. But Nixon never tried to effectuate a coup d’etat. Gerald Ford lost the next presidential election because the electorate was not amused by his decision to pardon Nixon’s criminality. Ford announced, “Our long national nightmare is over.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Au contraire. It was just beginning; that pardon set a dangerous precedent. A precedent that if one is in the highest position of trust, the chief magistrate of this great country, you are not subject to accountability. Your self-serving hubris will and should prevail. The law be damned. Justice be damned. Tell the peasants “l’etat c’est moi.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Some have argued that Donald Trump should be pardoned for his criminal activities to avoid a national trauma that would be provoked by a trial and even a conviction. They argue that a trial and conviction will increase polarization, fueling the ilk of Sean Hannity. Propaganda has been fed to the public for years now, by billionaire media moguls, interested only in their unparalleled profits, exacerbated by the continuing Trump circus. And yes, CNN and MSNBC have enjoyed the ratings also on their evening Trump bashes. Being in a media silo is a stupefying hypnotic mushroom induced religious experience.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Arguing that a Trump trial will increase polarity is fear itself. It is an acquiescence that our justice system is hopeless. That accountability for the prominent is untenable. That the wicked should go unpunished for their misdeeds. That some future president can come along and do whatever they want to impugn the law and escape accountability. This is unacceptable in a country with a constitution and the rule of law. Acknowledging misdeeds in one part of an argument and then saying there should be impunity for those deeds is cognitively dissonant and intellectually dishonest, a fear ridden Dickensian, existentialist, despair ridden determinism. It is depressing beyond the wildest imagination.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I prefer the Churchillian outlook, “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing—after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">We have gone so far down the rabbit hole--a mishandled pandemic, the minority election of a man exacerbating our national malaise of disunion, 5 years of distraction from the real problems facing the nation, and now those who wish out of fright not to punish those who would subvert our democracy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Our country has been through, to name a few traumas (and this list is by no means exhaustive,) a civil war killing 700,000 Americans, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the failure of reconstruction, the Jim Crow south, two horrific world wars, a disastrous war in Southeast Asia, a civil rights revolution, desegregation, a white population that still fears its loss of tribal status, the assassination of a young and promising president and his brother, race riots in Los Angeles, racial profiling, and a party that has now become anti-democratic. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">We can certainly tolerate the trial of Donald Trump. On TV. In living color. On every channel. Unvarnished. Unedited. Unexpurgated. No sound bites. On the internet live stream. Show them how American justice works. I have tried many cases in front of many juries. Let’s do it. Let’s see the evidence. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Television for all those who think there is no justice for the privileged and for those who question the justice system. For all those low information, Fox watching naifs who are sending in $25-35 of their hard-earned money to a scoundrel ostensibly to make America great, but instead who is using 23% of the money to pay his lawyers ($23M and counting). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Many of the little people who smashed into the capitol have been convicted and sentenced, testifying that they did it for “their president.” What about their leader? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Let’s send the message for the generations to come that a president is not a king, just as George Washington showed us when they offered him a kingdom.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">No pardon for Donald Trump.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-64271938363428727352023-07-19T14:58:00.003-07:002023-07-19T14:58:37.623-07:00Donald Trump in two years……<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Trump: “Well, boys, it sure is great making America great here in this fine minimum-security prison. The orange jump-suit matches my complexion. Happy to be sharing a cell with you great Americans.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Proud Boy: “Yes, sir, Mr. President. You will always be our president and making America great again. It’s an honor to share a cell with you, too.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Trump: “If you had been more careful, we could have been in the White House now, instead of the Big House. I told you to march peacefully. When I said fight like hell and stay strong, I did not want you to really hang Mike Pence. That was not good optics. After all he was loyal all the way, except when I told him to overturn the election. I told you to stand back and stay strong. That did not mean break down the doors and kill policemen.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Proud Boy: “Yes, Mr. President, maybe we should not have stormed the Capitol. And that hangman’s noose and gallows was not a good idea either. And we never got a hold of Nancy Pelosi. We would have surely hanged her. But I did get to put my feet up on her desk and take a video, so the deep state FBI could ID me.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Trump: I forgive you even though this is all your fault. But that’s ok boys, we will get there in the next election. I am making arrangements to have the Constitution amended allow past presidents to pardon themselves. And Justice Alito even said he can interpret the law to allow me to pardon myself without an amendment. This trip to prison was all rigged. The jury was rigged, the Biden Justice department was rigged, just as this last attempt to get the GOP nomination was rigged against me. And I thought I would get away with it all until Garland finally appointed that mad dog Jack Smith, a war crimes prosecutor, a real inspector Jovert, to get me. I thought Garland was such a wimp he would wait until after the election to appoint Smith. Biden must have put a boot up his ass. Those RINOs in the party gave the nomination to Asa Hutchinson, that Casper Milquetoast. How is he going to make America great? He even told people that I was unfit to be president. What kind of Republican is that? The least thing they could have done would have been to give the nomination to Ron DeSantis. At least he was mean enough and cruel enough to send those migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. He even used taxpayer dollars to do it! He is trying to be just like me, but he’s just a poor imitation, like Hunt’s Ketchup instead of Heinz. And by the way, that’s what they are giving us here at the mess hall. They don’t even have a MacDonald’s here.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Proud Boy: “Yes sir, Mr. President. You know as leader of the Proud Boys, I had your image tattooed on my back, just like Roger Stone had a tattoo of Nixon on his back. And I got the orange color just right. They had to use red number 4 to correct the skin tone. I sure am proud sharing a cell nearby you. I am really grateful that you pulled some strings to keep me out of that supermax prison, even though I clubbed some of those capitol police storm troopers.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Trump: “Well anyway, I succeeded in getting Liz Cheney out of congress. Who needs goody two shoes there to inspire the people? It’s bad for business. Never mind though, I have an enemies list even longer than Nixon. And I have studied Putin’s methods of dealing with political opponents. I mean I would not order any poisonings or arrange for anyone to fall out of a window, but there are other things I can do like blackmail. I watched how Frank Underwood did it. Very inspiring, I’ll tell you. Believe me.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Proud boy: “Mr. President, can I play golf at one of your courses after I get out of this hole?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Trump: “Sure, I will give you the felon’s rate. But be careful going to the bathroom, I still have some classified documents semi-hidden there. I would not want Lavrov to see them. I only share them with club members and good-looking women, since Melania does not even come to visit.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-42072540563450740382023-07-12T17:29:00.000-07:002023-07-12T17:29:06.300-07:00A Court of Division and a Look through the Glass, Darkly.<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The Supreme Court of United States favors the perpetuation of minoritarian rule and law, unrelated to the evolution of the American polity. This court has directly or indirectly advanced the notion that a multi-cultural democracy is not on their agenda. That notion hides behind a veil of corruption and hubris. The dignity of the highest court in the land is ghosting us.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Behind the façade of granite columns and the “Equal Justice under Law,” is a divide between the essentially gerrymandered court, appointed by a president elected by a minority of the popular vote and confirmed by a Senate that does not equally represent Americans. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This Supreme Court’s current agenda is insidiously hacking away at 70 years of racial progress. An agenda that gutted the civil rights act, and an agenda that tosses affirmative action in a ditch. An agenda that cruelly disenfranchises minority voters behind a cloak of intellectually dishonest hypocrisy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 dismissed racial segregation in the south, a litany of cases has followed its courageous lead. “Impeach Chief Justice Warren” signs abounded on every highway in the south. I saw them. Whites were busy reinforcing their tribal “superiority.” Tribes may have been good when we were fighting wooly mammoths, but are they still? New manifestations of old tribes have been egged on by Fox News, decrying every night about fear of immigrants, fear of others, all in the name of corporate profit biting away at the heels of our democracy. The first amendment gone wild. Where have you gone Walter Cronkite? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And yes, the north was racist also, effectuating segregation geographically. That, too was a remnant of disastrous reconstruction, presided over by Andrew Johnson who ascended to the presidency when Lincoln died. Johnson, a virulent racist, did all he could to return black America to the same position it was antebellum. Draft riots in New York City consisted of white mobs who did not want to fight to free “n*****s.” Segregated neighborhoods still exist.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The court imposing a time limit on the attempt to achieve racial justice while it is still a work in progress is heartbreaking because it assaults and batters the aspiration of a new generation of the American underclass, struggling to rise up. It struggles to grasp a part of the American dream, now fading further into the horizon, like someone crawling through the arid sand toward an illusory, shimmering oasis. But the court says the strugglers are now equal. Are they? Do they still have further to go? Justice Alito, his cruelty and bitterness unmasked, thinks so. Alito, after all, relies on 16<sup>th</sup> century opinions that use witchcraft as a rationale. Discrimination is dead, says he and Chief Justice Roberts. It’s discriminatory to favor an African American. Asians might suffer. Tuba players, athletes and legacies, too. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Equally divisive is the Alito authored Dobbs decision, creating a maze of State laws, especially for women with limited resources, trying to travel to states that provide health care involving reproductive choice. Abortion is never an easy choice; those who make it are often in dire need of help, psychological, emotional and medical, Justice Alito’s callous ideology aside.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Even sadder, is the reality that the court truly represents a significant number of Americans, fearing the reality of a majority-minority nation, threatening their supremacy, their tribe. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">A house divided against itself cannot stand, said Lincoln.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Are we to suffer the same fate as many other nations that could not reconcile their tribal differences, unable conquer their fear of others and the need for obedience to norms and to fellowship, of, if not loving, at least respecting countrymen of different creeds, opinion, and race? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Doctor King thought the arc of history bends toward justice. Would he feel the same way today? What would Abraham Lincoln say? Lincoln understood moral ambiguity. After all, before the war started, he said if he could save the Union half slave and half free, he would do so. But the war changed him, and although he was always morally opposed to slavery, at one time he considered a plan to send blacks back to Africa. He knew the first obligation of a politician is to get elected. The great emancipator understood moral ambiguity in himself and in his countrymen. He also said that without public sentiment there is nothing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Looking at a hate and grievance monger like Ron DeSantis in the most charitable light, one might say he is just trying to get elected. But at what cost? Do we see in Trump and DeSantis the dark reflection of ourselves?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-59336888688809921512023-06-25T14:47:00.000-07:002023-06-25T14:47:26.293-07:00Foundation and Union<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I have been trying to figure out why our country is so riven. It is not as though we have not been riven before, as in the 1930s when racism and anti-Semitism bloomed like an Onion at the Outback Steakhouse. Middle American nativism, reflected in the ravings of Father Coughlin, the Ku Klux Klan, the American Bund and even Charles Lindbergh, aviation hero. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Philip Roth writes convincingly of this in his novel of alternative history. “The Plot Against America,” where a sycophantic Rabbi becomes the dupe of Charles A. Lindbergh, who wins election to the Presidency against Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the election of 1940.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">In that novel, which is, in fact, based upon the true historical zeitgeist of America in 1940, Lindbergh and his anti-Semitic Secretary of the Interior, Henry Ford, send Jewish boys to families in the south and Midwest to be “Americanized.” The novel became a television mini-series, with the conservative Rabbi, Lionel Bengelsdorf, convincingly being played by John Turturro, and shown to be a foolish dupe of Lindbergh. Rabbi Bengelsdorf is promised a position of authority and power in the Lindbergh administration to convince Jews to vote for him.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Anyway, it all turns out pretty sour for Bengelsdorf when he learns that Lindbergh, after the election, no longer regards him of any use. While Lindbergh does not fit the role of confidence man, he did deceive Bengelsdorf to act in his behalf by betraying his own people. Lindbergh was, after all, a Nazi sympathizer, with no particular affection for Jews, whom he wrongfully thought had too much “influence” over President Roosevelt.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Roosevelt, meanwhile, had all he could do to keep political peace at home and to thoughtfully bend the United States into a fight for democracy and to save England from defeat in 1940 by the Nazi tyranny. It was not easy, as James MacGregor Burns writes in his brilliant biopic “Roosevelt the Soldier of Freedom.” America in 1940 was a hotbed of anti-Semitism as well as deep racial injustice and isolationism. People fleeing war ravaged Europe could not get visas to enter the United States. African Americans were being lynched every day and the “America First” movement was coordinating rallies in Madison Square Garden with the Nazi-American Bund to keep America from fighting a war for “the Jews.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Fast forward 80 years. Immigration policy remains a fiery cauldron of discrimination, xenophobia, racism, and fear. Fear of those different. Fear of those who do not look like us. The nameless fear of fear itself, as invoked in FDR’s first inaugural address (1933).<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself</span></i></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></i></span><i><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">— nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance</span></i></span></span><i><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This speech, given at the depth of the Great Depression, where soup kitchens lined Pennsylvania Avenue, the dust bowl caused famine in the Midwest, where unemployment was 25%, where an army of veterans descended on Washington to protest and were dispersed by the Army, shows how leaders that care about their flock act. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">They calm fears, they create unity, they lead the blind to quench their thirst. They do not steal classified documents, they do not enrich themselves at the public expense, they do not lie about election results, stoking fear and discord. They do not slither like snakes, away from public accountability and double down on their wickedness. They do not consolidate power based upon prejudice and fear. And they do not corrupt and pass fleas upon all those that lie down with them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This nation was built on many different foundations. A living Constitution, but one that must move with the times, the labor of slaves and immigrants, the dispossession of native Americans, of land stolen from Mexicans, of imperial hubris, of racial injustice, but also of decency, and the respect of our norms and institutions. The rule of law.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Occasionally we take a detour, we forget our past and partially re-live it. But in the end, we must believe that it will all turn out right. It took revolution, civil war, civil rights movements, protests, civil disobedience; but we must finally recognize what unites us as a people. The sticky glue that holds us together. This struggle has existed since the foundation of the union, and it will continue to exist as we labor toward a more perfect union. Not disunion. But union.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Wiederlaw legal blog for plain folkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14714040614753389922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-62518521734529449092023-05-25T09:39:00.004-07:002023-05-25T09:39:54.237-07:00Napoleon without the Bonaparte<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">Among the enigmatic politicians of the current crop, Ron DeSantis begs the question whether he really believes some of the things he says. If he is a hypocrite that is bad. If not, that is arguably worse. Not content with simply pandering to his aspirational MAGA base, he is pitching his divisive agenda to the American public. He looms, supposedly with the benefit of a Harvard diploma, like some ostensibly Trumpian avatar, minus the drama. But Trump fans like the drama, the excitement, the apprentice rancor. Rumor has it that DeSantis dislike index compares favorably (or unfavorably) with Ted Cruz, another darling of the extreme right. Apparently when DeSantis was at Harvard no one spoke to him, recognizing him as the martinet he was, thus rivaling Cruz’s reputation as stated by early (not the later version) Lindsey Graham, “that if someone shot Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, no one would care.” DeSantis is a Cruz fellow traveler. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">DeSantis became governor of Florida in 2015, squeaking by Andrew Gillam, later implicated in a drug scandal from which he was recently acquitted, after spiraling downward in a vortex of shame and guilt. No one really knows whether he would have succeeded as governor, but he certainly failed in handling his loss. So much for picking yourself up when you are down. Well, we escaped Gillam’s dysfunctional persona, receiving an authoritarian wannabe instead. The important question, however, is why we are faced with such glum choices?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">Politics is a shaky game, drawing, arguably, on those who do not have the ability to gain prominence in private life; H.L. Mencken’s aphorism aside—"no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">Loyally in the corner of DeSantis ( of course, only if Trump is <i>not</i> the MAGA nominee), Marco Rubio is evidence of that maxim, bashing the verdict of the New York jury finding his putative friend, Donald J Trump liable for defamation. As if either of them were capable of friendship to anyone. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">Attorneys can be disciplined for generically denigrating the justice system. Attorneys should state that while they disagree with a verdict, they should not bash the system of justice after a disappointment. This is an ethical violation. The truth is, however, that Rubio failed in his attempt to gain a large salaried position anywhere, so he changed his mind and went back to Washington, courtesy of the Florida electorate. Being a mediocre lawyer apparently is no impediment in Florida to being a mediocre senator. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">And let’s not forget DeSantis potential loyalist Rick Scott, that other jewel of the Senate whose company was fined billions for Medicare fraud, and who, as chairman, lost the GOP a bunch of seats in the last election. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">Within this rogue’s gallery of panderers, DeSantis paradigmatically excels, attempting to woo Trump followers to his culture wars, conducting his own policies of grievance with a sycophantic, spineless legislature passing a six-week abortion ban, making it harder to sue extortionate insurance companies and businesses, eliminating licenses and training for concealed carrying of guns and virtually assuring us another shoot out, almost anywhere in our state. Florida already has suffered its fair share of tragedy. Perhaps a gun fight at the magic kingdom, home of the subversive mouse who refuses to harken to the demands of DeSantis’ cultural imperatives, including homophobia and nixing anti-gender affirming care. There are always Nobel prize-winning authors’ books to ban. There are always “thoughts and prayers,” I guess, to address the gun issue, and don’t forget, we haven’t the foggiest notion where the governor is going now that his travel itinerary has been sequestered.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">There’s transparency for ya.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">Already, DeSantis has done his best to destroy the academic freedom at highly respected New College, appointing right-wing Republican president of the University of Florida, the Governor assuming the role of education curriculum czar so students can be stripped of their secular and misguided liberal “woke” tendencies. The methodology for this is banning subversive history books like the Diary of Anne Frank and Tony Morrison’s “Beloved.” Apparently, real history is verboten in MAGA world.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">Good luck encouraging hormonal college students at State Universities in abstaining from sex, forbidding abortion after six weeks, putting a state prison next to Disney World, banning books, removing the tenure of “woke” professors, denying black history, politicizing the education system, expecting a plethora of guns to not result in more deaths, inserting religious fundamentalism in the schools, and stoking the cultural divisions of Floridians. We have seen Donald Trump, we have known Donald Trump, and Governor DeSantis, you are no Donald Trump. But you are no Napoleon either.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-37435771823789099592023-04-12T16:56:00.002-07:002023-04-12T16:56:53.267-07:00“A Black Man who hates his own People.”<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Bud Harris, World War II bomber pilot and highly decorated war hero, and a personal hero of mine, coined this phrase to me during the Anita Hill scandal at Thomas’s confirmation hearings in 1991. Bud has passed but his words and prescience linger on.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">A misunderstanding of one’s own identity is the cornerstone of being out of synchronization with one’s peers. I think I know who I am, and if I do not, I wish someone would tell me that I do not.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Someone should tell Clarence Thomas who he is. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">He is of humble origins but has forgotten them. He has aspired to the American dream, climbing the heights of jurisprudence at least on a superficial level. Yale Law School. Appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States by a war hero President, George H.W. Bush. Never mind.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Some of his dubious accomplishments are: stopping the Florida recount in 2000, deciding that the second amendment permitted individuals, not only well-regulated militias; to carry guns (2008) (CDC figures show that gun violence affects blacks twice as much as whites); allowing dark money to corrupt campaign finance (2010), diminishing anti-discrimination features of the Voting Rights act of 1965; breaking down the wall of separation of state and religion (2014). His latest notable accomplishment is issuing the lone dissent in turning over Trump’s purloined classified documents and asking his colleagues if he had to disclose special favors, gifts, accommodations and private jet travel from his billionaire friends. Since these colleagues said “no,” he did not. Why would a Supreme Court justice need ethical advice? Really? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And of course, the fact that his wife and he never discussed any of the above for their 35 years of marriage, not even her wack-a-doodle efforts to aid the Capitol insurrectionists. Only morons think that husbands and wives discuss anything at all. And let’s not forget his consistent opposition to women’s reproductive rights as well as joining in with his Taliban oriented colleagues in striking down Roe v. Wade. This is the pendulum swung like a guillotine.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The consequences of these ideological bête noirs have plunged our country deeper into the mud. Virtually unlimited access to all kinds of firearms, mass shootings with weapons of war-- legally purchased, the states fighting over some states criminalizing health care providers in other states where abortion is legal, possible prosecution of women travelling from their home state to obtain an abortion, and states acting like this was the 1850s by pursuing individuals into other states to enforce their retrogressions. Like the fugitive slave act. Like the Dred Scott decision. And now Massachusetts declaring war on Texas over contraception pills.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And here in Florida, our DeSantis rubber stamp legislature now wishes to cap abortion at six weeks when women may not even know they are pregnant. Thank you, Justice Thomas.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Does Clarence Thomas know who he is? Well, forgive the pun, but the jury has come back after deliberating since he was appointed in 1991. In 32 years, Thomas has done his fair share in turning the founding fathers in their constitutional graves, and has done more to damage the principles of the republic than anyone since John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, both of whom had the honesty to announce their treachery by leaving the Union.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Thomas should announce his decency by resigning from the Supreme Court. Congress should announce its decency by calling corruption hearings to investigate the justices who have sanctimoniously and hypocritically said nothing about Thomas, by filing articles of impeachment or seeking his resignation, as they did when they were a fair and deliberative body when they asked Abe Fortas to do so for far less financial indiscretions and by accepting a $15,000 fee for lecturing at American University. Fortas stepped down. So should Thomas.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-77411963660150753562023-03-29T07:45:00.002-07:002023-03-29T07:45:33.369-07:00REPLACE THE SECOND AMENDMENT<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">More dead children, just now in Nashville, continuing shattered families, shooting in the streets, massacrers in elementary schools, twenty state legislatures now passing laws allowing open carry of guns, including the Florida House now passing permitless carry? WTF. I have a carry permit. I had to be fingerprinted and pass an elementary course to be sure I knew how to handle a gun. Just like driving a car. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The second amendment currently reads:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">“<i>A well-regulated Militia</i>, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This is a <i>collective </i>right.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">A proposed second amendment should read:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">“Citizens shall have the right to bear arms in the common defense of the United States, or as members of an authorized military organization or, as subject to regulation, designated by the several states or by the United States. Congress shall have the authority to enforce said rights and privileges by the appropriate legislation.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This is still a collective right, but much clearer. The courts will not have to continue a Kabuki dance regulating sales of guns because of a constitutional straight jacket imposed upon them by the original second amendment, written in 1787 and as interpreted by Antonin Scalia, also born in 1787.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This new 21<sup>st</sup> century version will still allow people to bear arms and will give the states continued concurrent authority to regulate sale and carry. It’s not as strong as it should be, but it will clarify the constitutionality of the states and Federal government being able to regulate guns and do away with Antonin Scala’s disastrous ruling in <i>District of Columbia v. Heller.</i> This decision created a constitutional Frankenstein.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i>Heller</i>, by one vote, turned a previously meaningful constitutional amendment on its head, by stating the right was <i>individual,</i> not <i>collective</i>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i>Heller</i> egregiously said It had nothing to do with militias, intended by the framers to protect the states, recently former independent colonies, against the tyranny of the crown or of the central government; it had to do with <i>individual </i>rights to carry guns, not a <i>well-regulated</i> militia. John Paul Stevens was correct in his dissent. <i>It was all about militias.</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Since then, the courts, legislatures and politicians have used the misguided decision written by a conservative ideologue to intellectually masturbate over the meaning of the comma in the second amendment. Enough already. Children, students and worshippers, cry out for help from their blood-soaked graves and their families, traumatized forever, ask “why?” to their deaf-eared lawmakers.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Law abiding citizens owning guns will still be able to keep them for self-defense. I own a gun. I enjoy going to the range from time to time. And several times, late at night, when someone knocked on my door and would not identify themselves, I felt secure that I had an effective defense if, heaven forbid, necessary.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">But the current Second Amendment prevents meaningful gun legislation. My new version still gives states power to regulate gun sales. It should be less subject to challenges that have filled volumes of law books. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Other democracies have meaningful gun laws. We no longer live in the wild west. People must be educated to understand that their rights are not being sacrificed to a totalitarian state. That is not what the framers intended. The preamble to the constitution says “…to provide for the common defense…”. That was what they meant when they talked about militias. Since Antonin Scalia’s majority 5-4 decision in Heller v. D.C. stating that there is an <i>individual </i>right to possess guns, rather than a <i>collective </i>right, there has been a Mount Everest of gun litigation often financed by the gun lobby, to ensure that everyone, including lunatics who want a gun, can get one. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This revised amendment would help clarify and lessen the mountain of litigation challenging the constitutionality of the second amendment, still allow gun ownership, but also allow meaningful gun regulation by the states and by Congress. King George III is not coming to get us.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Never mind lip service paid by legislators receiving large campaign donations from the NRA or its distraction of a “mental health issue.” Or providing “thoughts and prayers,” to those poor family members who have seen their children and loved ones slaughtered in a bullet-riddled storm of blood-spattered classrooms, college campuses, places of worship and rock concerts. And pay no heed to highly salaried NRA Gucci-loafered consultants who sail the Aegean Sea on private yachts fleecing their membership for donations to finance their cynical voyages.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-36887702824122447142023-01-01T16:48:00.000-08:002023-01-01T16:48:34.348-08:00 Why the West is allowing Ukrainians to bleed and die.<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">During his “wilderness years,” Churchill understood Adolf Hitler’s ambitions, presciently shouting to a deaf world the dangers ahead. The Rhineland. Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia gobbled up while appeasers twiddled. England and France could have sent Hitler packing. Instead, they gave him three more years to arm. It was too late. Fifty million died. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Stalin, double-crossed by his former Poland-dividing German friend, decided too late that he had to fight. Millions of Soviets soldiers and civilians died because of his dithering. FDR had to contend with America Firsters and could have entered the war sooner; he had third term political considerations in in 1940; but he knew he had to fight, too. <i>Eventually</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><h2 style="break-after: avoid; color: #2f5496; font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-weight: normal; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">We relive the mistakes of history at our own peril, like Wiley Cayote chasing the Road Runner. Putin invaded a sovereign country. Stop him, Germans. Stop him, Frenchmen. Stop him, NATO. Stop him, America. Ukrainian children are freezing and starving. People are losing their lives to a Russian bloodthirsty pyromaniac, a Hannibal Lecter.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Here’s the rub: using time as his weapon, like Hitler, Putin is conscripting, propagandizing, and gradually conscripting massive manpower—constructing his war machine, gaslighting his people, building support, slowly, craftily, cunningly, odiously. Russians believe his lies about Ukraine as a Nazi haven, a virtual pizza parlor filled with basement dwelling pedophiles, or in this case, jackbooted storm troopers. Despite President Zelensky’s Churchillian appearance before congress, we must move swiftly, because time is on Putin’s side. A war of attrition is not on Ukraine’s side. Even with US Ordinance, rockets, drones, artillery. Western fear is Putin’s ally. Time is Putin’s ally.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Wars start slowly but inevitably spiral out of control; aid the west provides the Ukrainians resembles aid the US gave to England in 1940, followed by exponential materiel increase from the great American “arsenal of democracy.” It was not enough. Not in 1940 and not enough in 2022; it will not be enough in 2023, 2024, 2025 as this war drags on. Too many Russians, too much manpower. Too much time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Victory requires a credible threat of NATO mobilization—an army ready to do battle. And an <i>ultimatum</i>. But that will not happen, I fear.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Billions of dollars for weapons in a proxy war with Ukrainians fighting Russians has been impactful. Americans can watch Netflix war movies while Ukrainians bleed. They can watch Tom Hanks storm the beach at Normandy. Much less dangerous. Let’s just ship some more rockets to Ukraine instead. Yellowstone is on. Even so, it was heartening to see the bipartisan support for Ukraine in the Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Military planners in the Pentagon and in Western European capitals should be preparing for a wider war. It would be malfeasant for them not to do. We just don’t realize it yet. NATO is obliged to tell Putin to get out of Ukraine or face an allied army to evict him. Putin must be given an ultimatum to get out or face military force. Germans and French, British and American, Canadian and Australian. Putin understands naked power. The west must mobilize. He does not understand anything else. Lenin said, “push forward the bayonet. If you find soft flesh, push. If you find steel, retreat.” Putin learned Lenin in school; Lenin is in his DNA. He learned it in the KGB. He learned it in Mother Russia. He wants it all. He is Czar Nicholas, Comrade Stalin, Comrade Lenin all rolled into a painting in the Hermitage, his hometown museum, where he went as a schoolboy, where his parents took him, where he learned of the greatness of Russia. Where the Czar had palaces.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Russians <i>never</i> had democratic traditions. Ask Nicholas II and his family, brutally executed by Bolsheviks. Ask the millions starved by Stalin in the Ukraine during his communized agriculture plan. Ask the people sent to the Gulag, or the Hungarians who dared to revolt against the Soviet hammer and sickle. Ask the subjugated Poles carved up by Stalin and Hitler. Ask all of the subjugated and terrorized people who suffered behind the iron curtain. Ask Alexi Navalny, a political prisoner, poisoned once, and now jailed in a Russian gulag.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">A delusional revanchist KGB agent in the Kremlin tries to raise the Soviet corpse by terrorizing a sovereign nation. A nation <i>which had its own history</i> before Lenin and his desciples created a dark Bolshevik empire.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">NATO, led by Germany and France and then the United States, face the eventual inevitability of mobilizing an army to kick Putin out of Ukraine and Crimea. The alternative is too grim to contemplate. Trench warfare. Stalemate. Ukrainians under siege. Massive Russian armies. Possibly being defeated. World economic disruption. Continued war crimes. A war of attrition, cold and misery. I hope I am wrong about this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Western ambitions about this outrageous war ending through negotiation are delusional. If Putin sees that we are serious about the sovereignty of nations, he must face a serious military threat-- mobilization of NATO forces. Only then he will likely back down. Until then brave Ukrainians will bleed, freeze and die bearing the brunt of our fear. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-18949496917516300732022-10-31T20:01:00.000-07:002022-10-31T20:01:03.534-07:00A Halloween Scare<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The election is coming, and I am frightened, yet hoping our nation will pass through this macabre dance with lies and propagandists on social media and right-wing news networks that have gone a long way to prove that telling a lie often enough makes it the truth.</p><p><br /></p><p>Never, during my lifetime, have I seen such rampant, angry, cultural division in this nation. Never have I seen such demagoguery and hatred. Ginned up not only by extremist media, but a rogue former president, and a crew of cowardly congressional consenters. These are not mere policy differences. </p><p><br /></p><p>I cannot, for the life of me, understand how the great arsenal of democracy, martialing its mammoth industrial might, fighting the odious tyranny of Nazidom, the cold war oppression of Stalinism, sacrificing the flower of its youth in two sanguinary world wars and an even bloodier civil war, could now fall victim to scoundrels whose only objectives are power based on the exploitation of the darker aspects of human nature and who now deny the validity of the most closely monitored election in the nation’s history. The big lie.</p><p><br /></p><p>We have come through a great pandemic; the miracle of medical research has saved millions of lives. We are entering a period of exponential technological change, though frightening, that promises to save the planet from the worst outcomes of human despoliation. Humanity will inevitably triumph. Technology will improve human existence; it always has, even though it has often caused displacement, economic tribulation, and fear. Even if it is true that life must be a class struggle, as Marx wrote--class warfare, the arc of history has bent toward justice, as Dr. King said.</p><p><br /></p><p>If human nature causes the remnants of tribalism and reptilian self-preservation to abnegate a more diverse and tolerant society, then the normative, civilized forward motion of society, the rule of law, means nothing. If this is true, then hope dims. Society is destined to a dark Trumpian dystopia. “I have got mine, so fuck the rest of you.” Let the rule of the jungle prevail. Every man for himself. This is not what the founding fathers intended. Even though the curse of slavery was baked into our constitution, this is not what they intended. They intended the Union to become more perfect. They knew it was not perfect—it was a compromise. But they hoped that it could move toward more perfection.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even so, different factions militate to preserve their identity, fearing a loss of self, a “replacement” by those they think less worthy. What is that identity? How does it differentiate us from one another? Cultish religiosity and white supremacy that seeks to impose its rules on others, selfishly assuming that one culture is better than another? Human DNA is all the same. Differences in education and in societal norms are what separate us from beasts. Human sociology confirms this premise. Some believe that theology is the curse of mankind, others believe it is the salvation. The state has no place in this debate. </p><p><br /></p><p>Ignorance is the seed of prejudice, education the seed of tolerance. But perhaps not always, some say, many educated Germans, the nation of Schiller, Wagner and Beethoven gave us Himmler and Heydrich. But that was an education based on lies—geared upon the debasement of human fellows—a grotesque version of Eugenics. Education perverted by lies is not education This behavior is true today of those who feed the public misinformation.</p><p><br /></p><p>The norms of society rather than the capricious rule of men are what holds us above the savage beast. It is not just the written law, it is the understanding and compassion of society that makes it validate our existence as anything other than debased. Diminishing societal norms of decency and tolerance threaten our freedom.</p><p><br /></p><p>Attaching oneself to convenient untruths often provides a path to power at the expense of the less entitled. Something about that resonates today, although institutional anti-Semitism in the 1930s and 1940s, for example, went hand in hand with the racist Jim Crow south. The United States abrogated open immigration in 1924. Before that almost anyone could come, and in coming, helped build the colossus of America—the railroads, the steel mills, the automobile and an ideal that America was exceptional. That reality is still true, if we let it be, moving the arc of history to the better. If the “evil that men do lives after them and the good is oft interred with their bones,” as Mark Antony cynically said in his eulogy to Caesar, then we are obliged as a society to make that not happen. We must strive to make the good live after us.</p><p><br /></p><p>Somehow, I want to believe that we will come through, as “Americans will always do the right thing, after all other possibilities are exhausted,” attributed to either Abba Eban or Winston Churchill, take your pick.</p><p><br /></p><p>But I still am frightened, in fact, scared stiff.</p><p><br /></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-14945195237347563222022-08-22T14:04:00.000-07:002022-08-22T14:04:26.484-07:00How a heavy-handed demagogue threatens to shatter our democracy.<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">What has happened to America? Do we remain racists? Are we, as Charles Blow of the New York Times argues, that people who vote for Republicans are themselves representative of malignant white supremacists? Do they really wish to restore America as it existed in its original form? No votes for women, blacks, the return of Christian institutional religion, votes for landowners only, enslavement of blacks, a Senate representing only 3,000,000 Americans, most of whom could not vote, created only as a malapportioned 2/3 compromise to appease slave states finally resulting in a bloody Civil War, staining the soil with an avalanche of blood? Is that where we are headed?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">In the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, quotas kept out immigrants by nationality, not merit, beginning in 1924. In the Jim Crow the South, no black voting, segregation, lynching. The GOP, the party of Lincoln, now has devolved into the likes of Kevin McCarthy, and Mitch McConnell, who sanctimoniously spoke on the Senate floor and blamed Trump for the Capitol insurrection, after not voting to convict him. Had he lined up the votes for impeachment in his caucus, we would spared Trump’s empowering election deniers and promising to run again.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This is unimaginable. Faulkner said, “this is a tale of sound and fury told by an idiot.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Two countries of red and blue, despising each other and looking at the same facts, drawing completely different conclusions? Thank you, avaricious Rupert Murdoch and your cast of greedy misanthropes, for spewing years of propaganda and contributing to the skewing of public opinion far beyond our wildest imagination. Thank you, Rupert, for promoting the big lie, and enriching your already swollen bank accounts at the expense of our Nation. There is a special place in hell for you, perhaps the Australian outback. Go back there and take Tucker Carlson with you, the obsequious, preppy demon who could be the world’s worst human being.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">In Florida, DeSantis wants no grade school instruction about the enslavement of black people? No books in the schools that allude to racism in America? Massive resignations among schoolteachers who do not wish to comport with Governor DeSantis’s concept of Eurocentric, Christian education? What about the other religions, many of which do not pray, or believe in a Christian god? Breaking the wall of separation of church and state, which allowed many different denominations to thrive in America, unlike European state religions. Stifling intellectual discourse among academics as too “woke?” Or woke people barring different viewpoints to be expressed? (a fault of the left) Banning of books that accurately reflect the history of the United States? Books that tell the story of the dark stain of racism in America? Biased maps drawn showing that in “Colonial” America there was very little importation of slaves, but no mention of “breeding” African slaves like cattle during the 18<sup>th</sup> century post-colonial South to pick cotton, feeding the growing economy of the Northern mills? Suppressing the truth that 25% of the building of the American economy and railroads was on the backs of slaves? Removing a lawfully elected State Attorney who did not agree with his idea of prosecuting teenagers for their reproductive choices? Telling Disney “Don’t say gay,” and threatening one of the, if not the, largest employer in the state to adhere to his homophobic agenda? I am unaware of a course at Harvard Law School on becoming a facsimile of big brother, a proto-Mussolini, a propaganda minister, an anti-gay activist, or a panderer to the worst social instincts of humankind.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Republicans like our fascist inclined, heavy handed governor DeSantis are busy suppressing the vote, separating women from their reproductive choices, attempting to pervert the constitution, taking advantage of Republican gerrymandered overrepresentation in the House of Representatives and the malapportioned Senate to cravenly pander to the gullible electorate by stoking their underlying fears of “others?” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The DeSantis “Stop Woke” Act, now temporarily blocked by a federal judge, attempts to control how businesses address race, gender and nationality. This is the cheapest, most craven way to run for President of the United States. DeSantis’ ambitions have moved beyond the State of Florida, inserting himself as a smarter avatar of Donald Trump aping Trump’s racism?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Reelecting Ron DeSantis would insidiously reaffirm the worst possible values for Florida and for the Nation. The problem is, do most Floridians agree with DeSantis? If so, the future is both frightening and depressing.<o:p></o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-72071681194285352982022-06-25T16:08:00.000-07:002022-06-25T16:08:26.714-07:00How the Supreme Court is taking a wrecking ball to America.<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Mitch McConnell, thank you for your inescapable, ignominious contributions to preserving our democracy. Thanks for not mustering GOP votes for impeaching a criminal and then making a hypocritical speech on the senate floor implying Trump should be prosecuted. Thanks for packing the Supreme Court with religious zealots. You have given us, in coordination with your dissembling judges, a Supreme Court that has just overturned a precedent relied on by two generations of American women, the constitutional right to make their own reproductive choices.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The fanatical religious zealot Samuel Alito and the intellectually dishonest, equally zealous, Amy Coney Barrett joined by the lying Clarence Thomas, now threatening other rights, (who replaced a judicial giant, Thurgood Marshall) and Bret Cavanaugh, have laid waste to 50 years of increasing rights for women. Cavanaugh, after disingenuously telling Susan Collins that he had no intention of overturning <i>Roe v. Wade </i>(1972), has joined his extremist brethren in wresting the power of the Chief Justice from him, moving the court even further to the right, using religious dogma to rationalize the draconian political results to come of overturning <i>Roe.</i> Preachy Barrett replaced another judicial giant, RBG, a lifetime warrior for the rights of women, who, on her deathbed, pleaded for the Senate to wait until a new president was inaugurated. But McConnell, after not even allowing a Senate vote on Merrick Garland for a year, rammed Amy through the senate in the last months of Trump’s presidential pardon adventure for felonious cronies.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Thomas Jefferson famously said, “keep the preachers away from government,” and surely his words resonate now more highly than ever. We have preachers on the court making decisions based upon their interpretation of Catholic/evangelical doctrine. Except perhaps other religions may have a different point of view.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">For example, interpretive religious writings, in the Talmud says that a fetus does not yet have a soul until it is born. And the doctrine of “pekuach nefesh” says that the life of the mother is superior to the unborn. But apparently not in Texas or Mississippi.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Using religious dogma as the <i>sole</i> basis for judicial decisions is like using a stone age manual for building a computer. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Several things need to be done to control court extremism. Voters need to work hard jettisoning GOP politicians who pander to their minority base to the detriment of the majority. Justices should be added to the court, subject to term limits of 18 years, allowing each president two choices for the court, per four years of presidency.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The United States Senate could be made more democratic through a constitutional amendment, say, allowing two senators per 500,000 of population, or some other figure that does not allow states with only that number to have as many senators as a state with 40 million people. This is inherently undemocratic, allowing entrenched minority rule. Next, there should be a constitutional amendment codifying <i>Roe</i>, and another one abolishing the dark money generated by <i>Citizens United.</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Another amendment screaming at us is the abolition of the electoral college, allowing direct popular vote, no more minority presidents. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The Kabuki dance confirmation process should be transformed allowing senators to really know what philosophy these powerful supreme court nominees really hold. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">A one term, criminal minority president who lost by 3 million votes to Hillary Clinton, with the help of Mitch McConnell, appointed three justices, captivated by antediluvian dogma. The Senate is not representative of the people. Religion has invaded the public space. And people who are the minority rule the land through a perverted electoral process, originally created to give equality for slave states and a militia carrying muskets.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The framers, who knew well the history or government and religion deeply understood that separation of church and state be inviolate. It is right in the First Amendment, clearer than a bell. “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This amendment has allowed disparate religious beliefs to thrive in America.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Many cases have interpreted this clause, as well as the right to bear arms, for that matter. Justices place their personal imprimatur on these issues, however. The court needs moderation, not extremism.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The constitution does not go well with originalism, written when people believed differently than they now do. Amy Coney Barrett believes that women should carry unwanted children to term including those who are plagued with incurable maladies that can be determined well before viability, to term, and then drop the child at the police station or at a an underfunded childcare facility so that they can be adopted. This zealot does not belong in a position of power deciding the fate of millions of women who need reproductive choice. She and Samuel Alito are cut from the cloth of those who persecuted others because they did not share their beliefs. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Alito, a modern-day Torquemada, is conducting an inquisition against women. His opinion is a screed of indifference to the dim social implications of overturning <i>Roe</i>, forcing poor women to travel long distances to seek reproductive care, creating insurmountable obstacles to keep their lives controllable. Some states will now ban all abortions, including a result of incest or rape.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">As Jefferson said, “Keep the preachers away from government.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-32853943391997208532022-05-07T08:57:00.002-07:002022-05-07T08:58:27.063-07:00GOP hypocrisy at its highest
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">So the Supremes, appointed by Republicans, Bush I, Bush II, and three justices appointed by the
Donald, who lost the popular vote by 3 million voters and who probably will soon be indicted in
Georgia for election fraud, and maybe Federally for a failed coup </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">d’état</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">, have decided that 50
years of precedent be damned, that there is no constitutional right for a woman to make her
own reproductive choices. Never mind an entire generation of women who have grown up
under Roe. </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">So let’s socially engineer by judicial fiat, what has been law for generations.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Let’s face the facts. The “justices” make up their own minds, and then build a constitutional
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">rationalization to support their position from an infinite variety of decisions throughout the
centuries of common law.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">And by the way, Bush II, like Trump, was also a minority president, except in the anti-
democratic electoral college, designed originally to allow slave states to remain so. Our
Constitution also ensured that woman and black people could not vote. So all you originalists
and textualists can go back to where we were before Roe v. Wade, to that wonderful mid 20</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 8pt; vertical-align: 4pt;">th
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">century where segregation ruled, or the early 19</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 8pt; vertical-align: 4pt;">th </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">century where slavery ruled. Why not
overrule Brown v. Board of Education to keep America white and segregated
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Justice Alito, that righteous avatar of Catholic abortion dogma rests at one of the pinnacles of
governmental power, believes that American women should be the victim of state
gerrymandered legislatures, representing a minority of the American polity. When Thomas
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Jefferson said famously, “keep the preachers away from government,” he surely should have
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">included Alito.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Let’s not </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">forget the notion that the court is or should be not politicized. That train left the
station in the early 20</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 8pt; vertical-align: 4pt;">th </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">century. When FDR’s National Recovery Act was shut down by the
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">conservative Court, a court packing threat from the Democrats in congress caused the
conservative majority to back off from shooting down the progressive programs that were to
help the nation out of the great depression.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">The problem is now that there are not enough votes in the Senate to do any such thing because
of successful Republican moves to suppress the vote; instead packing the court with
ideologues, the most notable of whom is the handmaiden herself</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Amy Coney Barrett, whom
the Donald picked to fill the seat of a progressive giant, RBG. Never mind the hypocrisy of
dissing </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Obama’s sel</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">ection of Merrick Garland, not even given a hearing thanks to Mitch
McConnell and his lieutenants, including Chuck Grassley, who should be in a nursing home
feeding on double doses of Prevagen.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Mitch at the helm has seen to </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">our current “Justices”</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">, helped by disinformation emanating from
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Rupert Murdoch’s FOX news</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">, a money-grubbing Australian oligarch, no better than the Russian
ones. </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Mitch’s net worth has increased ten</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">-fold since he was elected and not on his Senate
</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">salary for sure, his wife benefiting from Chinese largesse to and from her uber wealthy family.
Oh, and do</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">n’t </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">forget Clarence Thomas, a black man who hates his own people, abetted by his
wife, Ginny, encouraging the rioters to storm the capitol, sending emails to insurrectionists and
GOP party leaders to stop the certification of the vote by the Senate. Thomas is all bent out of
shape because of the dastardly leak, impugning the </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">“</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">integrity</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">” </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">of the court. But he will probably
not rec</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">use himself on Trump’s appeal if he is convicted of felonious conspiracy to precipitate an
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">insurrection.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Other dramatis personae include the repulsive Ted Cruz and the vituperative Josh Hawley, who
voted against the purely ceremonial certification of a lawful election, necessary to enshrine the
vote.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Also, lets not omit a Bronx cheer for Bret Cavanaugh, the beer swilling frat boy, credibly
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">accused of waving his penis in Christine Blasey Ford’s face at his fra</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">ternity house, assaulting
her. While admittedly a college escapade, it does not speak well to his character. But no
matter, he has absolved himself by joining in this sadistic exercise of Republican misogyny</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">. “I
like beer, Senator Klobuchar, don’t you?” Cavanaugh hubristically asked the Senator who</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">se
father died of alcoholism. No matter, there is no right to privacy in the Constitution, says the
red spider veined nosed icon of the religious right.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">Now, poor women who live in Texas, Mississippi, or other places of enlightened Republican
legislators will have to book an airplane flight or drive to a place where it is legal. But wait!
They do not have the money to do so, instead they can carry them to term and drop their newly
born at the nearest police station or underfunded Mississippi or Texas childcare facility. Thanks
a lot, Amy. Perhaps you want to adopt some more children.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">This whole sordid episode of “Making America Great Again,” </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12pt;">curdles the blood even of the most
casual observer.
</span></p>
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</div>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-78188539659602896652022-05-03T21:23:00.001-07:002022-05-03T21:23:20.100-07:00MACK THE KNIFE. A SHORT STORY <p>
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<p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">A work of fiction,
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">By David Wieder </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">I.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack Bronstein woke up, as he did every day, pissed off. He hated his life and everyone who, in
his twisted perception, slighted him.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack had a grudge list, but most of all, he wanted his wife dead. Mack lived in a house that
looked like someone had forgotten about it in the 1960s. Several large TVs populated the den
and living room; a dated shag rug lay on the floor. His refrigerator reflected his tastes, smelling
like an overripe salami. Mack liked to dine at a nearby Jewish Deli, where the food was copious,
the prices were cheap, populated by an elderly crowd of ravenous local condominium dwellers.
The deli was reminiscent of a Edward Hopper painting except there were many people sitting at
the counter, stuffing their faces with kosher pickles, freshly baked rolls and huge cheesecakes.
The countertop was trimmed in chrome around the worn, pink, cracking Formica. The changing
demographics, causing the deli later to close, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">much to Mack’s </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">chagrin, forced Mack to go to
other less desirable restaurants, like a nearby buffet where he could chomp on frozen all-you-
can eat shrimp. He loved Chinese buffets where he could stuff himself with as much food as
possible, paying a minimum price and returning for unlimited seconds and thirds. If one would
want to join Mack for dinner, it would have to be at a place of his choice, all others being </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“a rip
off.” “They are all a rip</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">off” he would say if someone were to suggest another </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">place.
Cheesecake factory was a big favorite. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“good value.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Mack restaurant rating was based
upon the size of the portions, rather than the quality of the food.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most of all, back in 1970s, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">he loved to dine for free at his cousin Daniel’s father’</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">s hotel, where
he would eat enormous portions filling his 250-pound frame. Free food was great, and no
limitation was imposed on seconds and even thirds and best of all, no bill. The hotel, filled with
religious Jews, its clean environment and kitchen dispelled the parochialism of its clientele,
many of whom were Holocaust survivors or down from the Bronx to consume as much food as
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">at a Nathan’s Coney Island hot dog eating contest. To this Daniel’s parents had catered
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">generously, and had made a not inconsiderable amount of money. Daniel was the first cousin of
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s wife, Dottie, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">a somewhat humorless, yet decent woman, who never could find her
place, until she and Mack married, and probably not afterwards, either.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie and Mack had been introduced by </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel’s sister, Carole, and the engagement party was
held at Daniel’s waterfront home. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Carole, a scheming, spoiled woman, generally liked to get
what she could out of people, and took advantage of Daniel, trying to sabotage his marriage,
and sowing chaos </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and misinformation, to her and Daniel’s parents, generating familial discord
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">in every manner she could. Daniel was an insecure, poor student, immature, and unmotivated.
He sought approval from his Father but it never came. Daniel had some sort of attention deficit
disorder and was inconsistent in his schoolwork, and getting through his classes by the skin of </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">his teeth. He needed to be loved but it never really came. When he met his wife, Caroline,
and began to work, he finally found his place, but never really overcame the scars of his
neglected childhood. Mack had accepted him though, and what came out of that
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">relationship’s destruction conferred enormous pain and another feeling of rejection that ate at
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel without abate. The mystery of how he could be so casually cast aside by someone he
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">cared for added acid to the witch’s brew of emotional instability that Daniel suffered from all
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">his life.</span></span></p></div></div></div><div class="page" title="Page 2"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You know, Dottie, the reason Mark and Jon moved away to distant cities, and never call, is
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">because I was strict and demanding. They knew not to be disrespectful to me, or I would have
booted them out the door </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">or slapped their face.”<br />
“That’s not the reason, Mack. Or only part of the reason. You never listened to them, always
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">hollering and telling them how they should do things, and not even acknowledging they had
their own opinions; all you did was complain to them about anything and anyone who might be
their friends, or who did not have money, or did not agree with your demented politics. You
expected all your friends to suck upto </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">you.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bullshit</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.”<br />
“It is </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">not, and I</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’m </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">sick and tired of your angry, bullying personality. You fight with everyone, the
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">neighbors, your children, and my cousin Daniel.”<br />
“Daniel is a jerk off Democrat who asked me </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to give </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">him Jon’s number to work on the Kenyan
candidate, Obama. “<br />
“</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">couldn’t Jon make up his own mind? </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He needed you to tell him what to do?<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“He needed my guidance.”<br />
“Hardly, Mack. He needed your guidance so much, he couldn’t </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">wait to leave the house. And he
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">certainly did not want to follow you into your dumpster fire law career.”<br />
“Fuck off </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie, you frigid bitch. I wish I were free of you. The only time you pay attention to
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">me is when you put me down. I’m going out.”<br />
“Where?”<br />
“None of your fucking business.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack drove over to his office, three rooms and a receptionist area. Belle, the receptionist was
sitting at her desk, chewing Nicorette.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Hi Belle,” Mack said, “glad you’re quitting smoking.”<br />
“Thanks a lot. Charlie said he would fire me if I didn’t, because </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">you told him. I need a cigarette
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">now and then, and I always went outside, so why did you insist?”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Because I can’t stand the smell of tobacco and I don’t want my lungs affected. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyone who
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">smokes is either stupid, suicidal or doesn’t care about others inhaling poison.”<br />
“Thanks again Mack.” Belle hated Mack.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Charlie was sitting with his feet up on the desk. “Hey</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, Mack, I thought you were going to bring
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">in some business. Plus, you are late on the rent.”<br />
“I know I know, been having a rough time at home.”<br />
“Why?”
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Well, the boys are no longer </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">around, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and I have to be with Dottie too much, she’s always
ragging on me, and won’t fuck me, not that I want to.”<br />
Charlie was not interested. “Listen Mack, you need to pay rent, you are three months </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">behind,
and you ha</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ven’t lived up to our deal. You promised some cases, you promised to do some TV
spots, you said you had sources for business, and you can’t even pay the reduced rent.<br />
“Charlie stop busting my balls, I’ll come through.” Mack stormed out the door. Charlie </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">thought
to himself, what an asshole.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack went to his office and decided that he wanted out of his marriage, his law firm and
financial demands he could not meet. But he had a plan. He was fed up with his left-wing
associates and his up-tight wife. He knew they all despised him. Robert, the other lawyer in
the office, had plenty of business. Cheerful, young, aggressive, and hardworking, always had
people coming in and out.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Rob,” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">wanna </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">get some lunch?”<br />
“Mack, I am so busy, not today,” Rob </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">knew lunch would be another tirade about how the world
was out to get Mack, the Democrats were ruining the country, and the black president was not
born in the US.<br />
The time before when Rob did dine with Mack, Mack had a tirade.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Obama is ruining the country, and th</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">e Democrats are so soft on crime. We need a law and
order administration. Anyone who votes Obama </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">is stupid.” Mack announced</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. Most of his
colleagues ignored his right-wing </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">tirades. “They’re </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">trying to outlaw capital punishment. I say fry
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">them all.” I don’t even speak to my wife’s cousin Daniel because he worked on the Obama
campaign and asked me for my son’s phone number to tell him how to vote. He had the nerve
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to call me an asshole. Obama never even </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">showed his birth certificate.”<br />
“Mack, sorry, I have work to do.”<br />
“OK Rob, see you later.” Mack was pissed that Rob dismissed him, and felt his blood rising, but
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">held back, thinking Rob might need him in a case later on. In fact, there was no such possibility.
Rob was convinced that Mack was a washed-up loser. Rob thought Mack should get a drink,
but Mack neither drank nor smoked, confining his beverage to caffeine-free diet Coke.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Welfare manipulators</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” he would say, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">causing him to rationalize his racist politics. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“L</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">iberals
were satanic manifestations of Leon Trotsky. Obama was not born in America, a Kenyan, not fit
to be president; moreover, a black person who was not born in the United States.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack was Jewish, but acted like someone from the Alabama backwoods. Mack voiced his half-
baked opinions as though they were gospel. If anyone disagreed with his rantings, they
deserved no credibility. Mack was an iconoclast without portfolio. An Archie Bunker sans
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">humor. Mack’s sense of humor died when he married Dott</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ie, who never laughed at his jokes
and evinced a sullen apathy herself.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie had lost any semblance of her self-esteem, suffering psychological abuse for 40 or so
years. She had taught school many years, achieved a substantial pension, and inherited money
from her parents</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’ estate</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, as well as from a niggardly uncle who left her a part of his rather large
fortune, because Uncle Vincent resided at poverty level, sporting a 50-year-old frazzled leather</span></span></p></div></div>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">belt that seemed like it would separate from its buckle at any moment and a worn polyester
shirt looking as though it would spontaneously combust. Uncle Vincent, a confirmed bachelor
and multi-millionaire, after selling his supermarket to a chain, was a constant presence at Mack
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and Dottie’s house. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He enjoyed the free food, and the large televisions he found too
extravagant to buy for himself. Uncle Vincent was gentle soul, though, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">as was Dottie’s father,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mitchell, certainly not a spendthrift either, a retired dentist who continually catered to his wife,
Eleanor, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel’s aunt, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">until the day he died. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Eleanor, Helen’s sister, lost her noodles, and
mostly sat around Mack’s house in semi</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-catatonia. She no longer remembered anyone, even
her children.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Dottie, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">your cousin Daniel called me an asshole because I would not give him Jon</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’s number
because he told me he was working on that Kenyan presidential candidate’s campaign and
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">wanted Jonathan </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to help him. I’m never going to speak to him again</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">exaggerating the context
of the perceived insult to justify his sangfroid to his wife and sons.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I told him, I thought you were a Republican. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Can you imagine, he was a Democrat. I thought
he supported Nixon, like me. I think he did at that time. What a dumb move, supporting a
schvartza. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They’re </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">taking over our country</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Mack,” Dottie responded, “enough.”<br />
“Dottie, shut up. You’re </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">someone who I would have left a long time ago, but we had children.
Your opinion is worthless. I</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’m </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">sick and tired of listening to you, you are just plain stupid. Daniel
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">is a prick, but I guess it runs in your family.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie had heard that all before. She, to</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">o, was tired of Mack’s </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">abuse, but she did not want to
extend the conversation. She knew she was locked into an unsalvable marriage and could not
even bear to sleep in the same room. But she was fearful enough to remain in place. She had
no friends either, no place to go.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Listen, Dottie, we have to go to your brother’s son’s wedding in Washington</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, and I w</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">on’t </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">speak
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel, he’s a left wing socialist.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie did not respond, preferring to keep the peace, and too tired of arguing with a wall.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Don’t </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">answer any calls he may make to you, I </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">won’t </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">forgive you either, if you speak or meet
with him. As far as I am concerned, he is dead to me</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.”<br />
“</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why do you have to be such a jerk? </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He’s my cousin.<br />
“I am sick of you and your </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">family; I should have divorced you a </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">long time ago.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“My family are good people, and you keep insulting them. Because of them we have money,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">certainly not through any hard work you did. And everything we inherited came from my
family, certainly not yours. All we got from them was a psychodrama, with you playing the
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">lead.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack got up, approached her, and smacked her in the face.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie, who had always acceded </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to Mack’s </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">sociopathy, began to weep, hung her head and left
the room, W</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">hy am I here?” she thought. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She wanted him dead, but never would act on it.
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At his cousin’s wedding in DC</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, Daniel approached Mack to apologize for calling Mack an
asshole, a title which he richly deserved, but that Daniel should not have called him.
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Mack,” Daniel said warmly, attempting to give him a hug.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack repulsed Daniel, who, to Mack, was a serial killer. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“No, stay away from me.”
“Why?” asked Daniel.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack did respond, glaring at Daniel with contempt. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I don’t want to have anything to do with
you!” he shouted, his facing growing red.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel walked away, realizing, but not completely understanding, why Mack had such strong
antipathy toward him. He re-approached Mack.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack started yelling, “get away from me.”<br />
“Why are you so angry?”<br />
“Get away from me,” Mack </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">shouted. By this time the other guests noticed the disturbance and
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s son, came over to separate Daniel and Mack. Af</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ter that, they had no further
communication, Daniel not wishing to disturb the wedding any further, but deeply shaken by
the rebuff, the lack of forgiveness.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After, Daniel had phoned Dottie, curious as to what was really his offense, asked her to lunch,
she accepted, then cancelled. The issue hardly could not have been only one aberrant
conversation. It did not make sense. Excepting if Mack had exaggerated the exchange between
him and Daniel. Dottie and Daniel had spent much of their childhood together, visiting Niagara
Falls with her parents, riding the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maid of the Mist</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">under the thundering water, and shared
the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">same fate when Dottie’s </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">father stopped them from swimming with her older brothers and
cousins at Buttermilk falls outside of Ithaca New York</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, where Dottie’s uncle was a professor </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">at
Cornell. Daniel had accompanied his aunt and uncle on a trip as a seven-year-old. Daniel loved
his aunt and uncle, who had been so kind to him. Daniel felt awful when his uncle Mel had
died, and his aunt faded from dementia. Dottie sort of knew this but sublimated her feelings to
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">pacify Mack. That trip to Niagara Falls, burned into Daniel’s memory endeared Dottie to him.
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She was emotionally detached, almost autistically indifferent to most other people. Dottie had
had a hard time connecting with boys during her teenage years. She had crushes on boys,
which went mostly unrequited. Dottie, like almost everyone else in the family, worked at
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel’s father’s hotel for many summers and basically grew up with Daniel and his sister,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Carole. Their childhoods were intertwined through the deep </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">friendship of Daniel’s and Dottie’s
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">parents</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. Hellen’s sister, Dottie’s mother, Eleanor had driven Helle</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">n to the hospital that summer
day in 1942 when Daniel was born.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack had again received repeated calls, emails containing apologies from Daniel after the
Obama and wedding incidents, never responding. Mack angrily never wanted to reconcile with
Daniel nor his estranged brother whom Mack viewed upon with a not an inconsiderable
mixture of envy and contempt. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Forgiveness was not in Mack’s vocabulary</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">; he viewed the world
as a conspiracy directed at him. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s brother had moved on, but Daniel was consumed by
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">the unexplained rejection. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s younger brother had made a successful career i</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">dermatology, finally married, but was able to put Mack out of his mind. Daniel was not able to
do that.</span></span></p></div></div></div><div class="page" title="Page 6"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack, some years before, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">had drawn the will for Daniel’s mother, Hellen, much before his
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">perceived insult from Daniel, making himself the alternate personal representative. Upon
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hellen’s death a trust was set up for Daniel’s alcoholic sister</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, Carole.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel remained persona non grata. Daniel had come to accept but not completely understand
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s hatred after trying to reconcile with </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">him through </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">emails and phone messages. “Please
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">forgive me</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,” Daniel </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">pleaded, even though he knew the attempts would bear no fruit. Daniel
optimistically thought he would succeed but sometimes apologies do not work. Daniel, trying
desperately, could not understand the opprobrium. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some people just can’t forgive. If it is true
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">that forgiveness is more for the forgiver than Mack would continue to suffer, and Daniel felt
compassion, even pity, for Mack</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, yet remained wounded psychologically with Mack’s refusal to
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">even explain why he was hateful. Daniel hurt inside and could not help thinking that there was
something more he could do to resolve his pain.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Much before all this, Daniel had represented Mack in a lawsuit against an African American
man who sued him for assault, when Mack blocked him with a briefcase outside a courtroom
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">trying to collect a debt on behalf of his father’s used c</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ar business. The debtor was an
ignoramus, who had been a professional prize fighter</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, who did not accept Mack’s boisterous
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">aggression, and punched Mack in the face, shattering his sunglasses and blackening his eye.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack went to Daniel to represent him in a lawsuit against the man, George, who had socked
him in the eye in the courthouse hallway, all this having been witnessed by a police officer who
promptly arrested George. George had pled guilty on the assault charge, and Mack had Daniel
sue George for civil assault and battery. The trial judge directed a verdict in favor of Mack,
which was later reversed on appeal. Daniel and Mack spoke frequently on the telephone,
exchanging family news and pleasantries. They were friends in those years. Daniel also
achieved a substantial settlement for Mack in a personal injury case. Mack and Daniel went to
Epcot together and celebrated. Mack found some comfort there with a prostitute.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s son</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, Jonathan was to be married. And the wedding plan and invitations were to go out.
Jonathan called Daniel, to explain why he could not invite him to his wedding.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You know, Daniel, my father told me that if I invited you to my wedding, my dad </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">would not
come. He told me, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“It </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">was him or me</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jonathan, who also must have suffered from abuse,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">complied with his father’s ultimatum.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel, non plussed said, “sure Jonathan, I understand.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But Daniel </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">was surprised by Jon’s deference to his father who had given him </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">an inappropriate
ultimatum. Daniel thought that Jon should have stood up to the bullying. On the other hand,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon’s gentle nature wished not to be excommunicated too. “He’s stubborn,” Jon said, and
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel felt even more compassion for the difficult place his father had found for him.
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometime later, Daniel ran into Mack in a noisy restaurant. The restaurant was a kind of an
upscale Outback Steakhouse, where full dinners came at an inexpensive price, drawing a mostly
elderly crowd in an undistinguished ambiance, the menus adorned with color photographs of
steaks, chops and fries. The tables bore no cloths. There was a hardwood laminated floor, with
a transparent look of cleanliness. Waitstaff scurried about, feigning familiarity by introducing
themselves by name. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“How are WE doing today?” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack was seated at a table with about six
others, including Dottie, who sat basically transfixed, almost in catatonia.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Mack</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">do you have a minute?” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel wanted to again bury the hatchet, to clear the fetid air.
Daniel, pained by the rejection, wanted to reconcile. Daniel had felt that he had done a lot for
Mack, and had more than earned his forgiveness</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, despite Mack’s impulse to cut him out
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">because he did not agree with him politically, or even worse, made a statement with which
Mack did not agree and took hyperbolic defensiveness.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“No.” Mack replied.<br />
“I just wanted to have a word in private...”<br />
“No,” Mack </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">interrupted.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daniel, nonplussed, said “why not?”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No response from Mack, speaking as though Daniel was not there. Dottie sat closed mouth and
incredulous. Daniel could not believe the immediate rejection.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“What kind of man tells his son, it’s him or me for your wedding</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">?</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” Daniel announced to the
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">group. Mack jumped out of his chair and threatened to punch Daniel in the face. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I’m </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">bigger
than you, if you stay here, I will flatten you,</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">clearly embarrassed by the confrontation that
exposed </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">nakedly unforgiving, mean-spirited character, Daniel retreated, astonished by
the behavior of a bully, who had called the manager to eject Daniel from the restaurant.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On his way out the door after dinner, Daniel loudly accused Mack of being Hitler.<br />
But Daniel remained pathologically obsessed about what he had really done to create such
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">hatred toward himself. He ruminated about it, but no one from Mack’s family wanted to reveal
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to him what Mack had thought he had done wrong. The mystery germinated into an obsession
and Daniel</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’s children told him to “forget about it.” They could provide no clarity either. Daniel
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">still agonized and continued to do so. His pain was evident to all who knew him. Rejection
without explanation. Mack had achieved his goal, his schadenfreude.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">II.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack fantasized about he could get rid of Dottie, but he did not know how. He thought of
hiring someone to kill her, or creating an auto accident, running her down in the driveway or
the street, or feeding her poison. Then he could find some younger woman who would have sex
with him, but he could not get himself to do it. Maybe a staged home invasion with both of
them as victims. He had an old client, Cliff, a convicted murderer, with whom he thought he
could make a deal. He decided to meet Cliff in a seedy bar near downtown.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Cliff, I can pay you $20,000 to off my wife.
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I dunno Mack, you did me a good turn when you represented me in my murder case, but I paid
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">you plenty. I guess I owe you. You got me a really reduced sentence. They could have fried
me.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I don’t know either, Cliff, but I have the cash to pay you if you decide. But don’t do anything
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">yet, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m just thinking about it.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">“OK, Mack.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The house was dark when Dottie and Mack arrived home. Mack looked at his bed, his wife and
his life and felt a gloomy, existential pain. He found her repulsive. He wanted a way out, a way
to be respected</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">—</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">a trophy wife. It was not to be, he thought, not enough money. He craved
adulation, which never seemed to come his way.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Dottie, my back is killing me, could you bring me some Advil?”<br />
“Sure,” said Dottie. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”<br />
“I can’t. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I hate your fucking cousin. He keeps trying to contact me. I</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’ll </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">never forgive him.
Dottie took a step back, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Maybe you should take some sleep medication?”<br />
“Nah, I’ll just lay here. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I hate that bastard. The only reason he has money is because his father
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">left it to him.”<br />
“That’s not true, he is a lawyer just like you, except he goes to work.”<br />
“Shut up Dottie, you are just an idiot. You’re not worth the trouble.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie, tired of Mack’s complaints, left the room to watch television. Since she had retired
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">from schoolwork, she was obliged to spend too much time with Mack. She knew he could
explode at any minute. Sitting down on the lounge chair, Mack called out to her.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Dottie, get me some sleeping pills.” Dottie got up and brought Mack some Ambien. She
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">hoped he would take the whole bottle. She returned to the lounge chair.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dottie had compromised her life, she thought. She yearned to have some independence, some
time to herself. Mack was in the way. He always complained to her about her lack of sexual
desire. In reality, she found him repugnant, his big fat body, almost whale-like pressing her
down, squeezing the air from her, making her unable to breathe. There was no tenderness, no
intimacy, no love. But Dottie did not feed on those qualities. There was something missing
anyway. It could not be found. Whether it ever existed is hard to visualize, given her unloving
personality and his bombastic, misanthropic bravado. Their marriage was a psychodramatic,
pathological, tragic undertaking.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Outside the house, dark skies warned of an incipient thunderstorm. Claps of thunder and
lightning pierced the living room. Dottie awoke in a start and went to see if Mack was still
sleeping. He was. His loud snoring outdoing the thunder. Dottie thought to herself, how could I
be married to this man, this overwhelming bully who has divorced himself from my family?
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The next morning, the skies cleared, a crisp cold front passing through. The sun shone.
Awakening, Dottie still reflected upon her wretched state, married to a boor, isolated from her
children, whom Mack had condemned for moving far away, not calling much, asking to speak to
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<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">her, not him, when he picked up the telephone. Dottie knew that her sons did not respect
their father and it was a cause of continuing worry. But Dottie did not like to face reality; it was
easier to just ignore the bad or set upon unchartered waters. Her brow was wrinkled, and her
jet-black hair dye job covered her completely white hair. She looked like some surreal feature
of a Dali painting.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack said to her,<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“What’s for breakfast?”<br />
“I don’t know,” Dottie answered.<br />
“What do you mean, you don’t know? </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Gimme some coffee and donuts, I brought them fresh
from Dunkin Donuts</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. I like them hot.”<br />
“Get them yourself.”<br />
“You’r</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">e just like your fucking c</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ousin. I should have divorced you years ago.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie started to weep. Mack did not care, he continued,<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You are just a dried</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-up old bitch. I knew I should never have married you. You were ugly then
and you</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’re </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">worse looking now. And I do not give a shit about your family and that Daniel who is
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">worse than you, but not by much.” And don’t go reconciling or having lunch with </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">him, or you</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ll
regret it. I have a friend who does a lot of divorce work, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">believe me, you won’t benefit. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie
recoiled from the threat. How could this man, to whom I have given two wonderful sons and so
many years, be such a brute? I worked much harder than he did over the years, teaching school
and raising our two sons</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, while he “practiced” law, earning next to nothing.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The weather was changing, that night, Mack scarfed down some additional salami and eggs,
washed down with a Diet Coke.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">There had been many robberies and burglaries in the neighborhood, a small 1970s Levittown-
type development in which their house was bordered by a huge concrete wall in the backyard
behind which was a freeway. Dottie felt a fear creeping up her back and the hair on the back of
her neck stood up. There was someone knocking on the front door. Dottie approached the
front door and opened it. Two men pushed her aside and rushed in.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Who are you?”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cliff stepped in, slammed the door, and slapped Dottie in the face. “Shut the fuck up,” he said,
and Cliff had a partner with him. “Shut up, bitch.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie screamed, and Cliff slapped her so hard, she fell to the floor. Cliff and his partner wore
black masks.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack, sound asleep, snoring like a whale, attached to his CPAP machine, heard nothing.
Another man, black hooded mask and turtleneck </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">sweater, screamed at her, “Bitch, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">stay down
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">on the floor.” Anoth</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">er man, similarly attired, who had followed him in through the door,
walked by her as she lay terrorized on the floor.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack awakened in a fright.
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cliff’s partner </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">grabbed Dottie, pulled down her slacks and panties, forced her to the floor and
penetrated her while she screamed in pain. Then they exposed her breasts and raped her
again. When they finished, they cut across her face with a knife, and cut her breasts. Dottie
screeched in agony, knowing they would kill her. Mack watched dispassionately.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Another person who would no longer annoy him.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cliff said, “give me the combination to the safe, Mack or I’ll kill you, too.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack became frightened, gave the combination to Cliff, who opened the safe and found
$90,000 inside.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Cliff, we didn’t make a deal, why are you here?”<br />
“I need the dough, Mack, and I’ll kill you and your wife for it.”<br />
“Cliff, are you crazy? Or high?” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack said.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Don’t push it Mack, I am gonna do you a big favor.”<br />
Mack protested, “No, No, No!!!” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cliff went over to Dottie, pointed a gun at her mid chest and
pulled the trigger three times, killing Dottie. Blood exited her mouth and spilled onto the white
ceramic tile floor. Mack winced in horror, but strangely was not unpleased.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The two then, while Mack watched, emptied the rest of the clip </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">into Dottie’s corpse.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then they </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">walked over to Mack, with the butt of Cliff’s gun, smashed Mack in the mouth,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">knocking out his front teeth and leaving him with a bloody mouth.<br />
They then duct taped him to the bed, hand and foot, cleaned up after themselves, and took
their latex gloves, and the gun with them, but replacing the kitchen knife in its holder in the
kitchen after thoroughly cleaning it.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">III.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack struggled to untie his hands and after 20 minutes, succeeded. He ripped the duct tape
from his bloodied mouth and dialed 911 as soon as he could.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“My wife’s been killed,” he screamed into the phone.<br />
“Please hold,” the robot said. Thirty seconds passed.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Can I help you?”<br />
My wife’s been killed in a home invasion,” Mack said almost dispassionately.
“What’s your address?”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After that, he called his two sons to tell them what had happened but did not talk about
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dottie’s death yet.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Geez, Dad, who did you antagonize?” Jon i</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">nquired.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Goddamit, Jon, how dare you ask me that?”<br />
“Because it seems like you have a lot of people you dislike or don’t talk to”<br />
“Listen, Jon, “I have some bad news.” Your mother was killed by the two men who broke in.”
“WHAT?”
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Your mother is dead.”<br />
“You told me a long story about yourself and mentioned nothing about Mom? You just matter</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-
of-</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">factly say she is dead?”<br />
“Listen, don’t give me </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">shit</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, I’ve been through a lot of </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">traumas, and the police will probably not
do a thing.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And if you were a </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">good son, you would live here in Miami, near us. I never hear from you.”
“Dad, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">what the fuck? Y</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ou don’t hear from us, because you never expressed any interest in our
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">lives, and you never have anything nice to say. All you do is tell us how to live our lives. And you
bring this up in the same phone conversation with the news that Mom is killed? How sick is
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">that?”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All you ever did was complain about Mom and my wife, and Mark. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You’re probably glad she is
gone.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Mark and I will be down for Mom’s funera</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">l, but not to see you. You treated her like shit,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">which she wasn’t</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, she came from a good family, better than yours. All you ever wanted to do
was wallow in your own misery and blame others for it. You are jealous of other family
members who did better t</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">han you. I hate you.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack thought, he’s an ungrateful little spineless shit, not caring whether he came or not with
his sniveling little family that sent out picture New Year’s cards </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to everyone, who probably did
not give flying shit about him anyway. Mack then plunged into gleeful thought about having a
new girlfriend, preferably quite young. Maybe someone in their 20s and now that hag Dottie
was gone, he would be free of all encumbrances. Except he thought that a younger woman
would cost him money.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“If I were there, I would slap you in the face.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon hung up the phone, preferring to say nothing to someone who meant nothing to him.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack dozed off after they removed the body.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon sank into despair; he loved his mom, who stood in the way of the</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ir father’s bullying. Now
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">that she was gone, he felt like an orphan. His father was a prick and he knew it. Maybe he had
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">something to do with his mother’s death. Maybe he plotted the entire thing. Why didn’t he
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">invite his mother to come with him and Judy, his wife? Judy liked her mother-in-law but not
that much. But since she always was quiet and minded her own business, she was tolerable.
Judy hated Mack and saw him for what he was: a selfish, narcissistic, bullying asshole. She
could not comprehend how quiet and sensitive Jon was, and the psychodramatic relationship
with his father.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jon called Mark. “I have some bad news.”
“No, about Mom. Sit down.”<br />
“What?”
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Mom was killed in a home invasion. She opened the front door, and two men broke in, ra</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ped
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and killed her and tied Dad up to his bed, but Dad untied himself and called the police. Mom’s
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">body was mutilated, and she was shot a bunch of times, maybe 8-10.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I wonder why they didn’t kill him too?” Mark said.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Don’t know. We have to go down for Mom’s funeral. Will you pick me up in your plane, and
we’ll go together. Too bad Dad will be there. I’m sorry it wasn’t him instead.”<br />
“Sure, Jon, I am devastated.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark loved his mother even more than Jon and a sinking feeling
came to him.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">IV.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack woke up the next day to a ringing phone.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Mr. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bronstein, this is Detective Ron LaFarge of the Miami-Dade Police Department. We would
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">like to come by today to ask you a few questions.”<br />
“What for?”<br />
“We need to know some more details about the circumsta</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">nces leading to the murder of your
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">wife and your home invasion,” said LaFarge</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, his voice betraying skepticism when he said,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“home invasion.”<br />
“What time,” said Mack, “I have some clients to meet.”<br />
“We need you to make yourself available.” LaFarge had alread</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">y done some questioning of
neighbors, learning that most of his neighbors had had tiffs with Mack, and characterized him
as a very angry man. Some of his neighbors avoided him entirely and had said that they had
heard enraged confrontations between him and Dottie. Everyone sort of agreed that Mack
evinced a stubbornness and denial of the perceptions of his evident personality flaws gained by
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s neighbors. Mack was always angry or complaining about someone or something in a
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">tone that was filled with rage. They thought that he had shouted often at Dottie. Mack had no
ability to understand the feelings of others. A sociopathic narcissist.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“How about three this afternoon?”<br />
“Ok, said Mack, “I’ll shift my meeting around.” Actually</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, Mack had no meeting to go to at all.
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“See you at three.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A knock on the door. Mack answered. It was 3pm. Detective LaFarge and his partner, a young
woman, Shirley Grant, were at the door.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“May we come in?”<br />
“Sure, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">but crime scene forensics has already gone over this place with a fine-</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">toothed comb.”
“That’s why we want to talk to you.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack grew anxious. “Ok, have a seat. Do you want anything? Coffee, soda, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">a bagel, something
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">stronger?”<br />
“No thanks, Mr. Bronstein</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, we are good. We want to ask you how all this </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">happened.”<br />
“I already explained everything to the uniformed guys</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Well,” LaFarge continued, “we have seen some inconsistencies in your story and what the lab
reported.”
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“What do you mean?”<br />
“</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There was no sign of forced entry and the gun, which we found on a street nearby, had your
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">fingerprints and DNA match the bullets found in your wife’s body</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. We ran a check on the gun,
and it was sold locally. There is no record of it belonging to anyone else, so we have to assume
it was yours. We are now checking gun shops and gun shows and we think you purchased that
gun. Also, none of your neighbors saw anything or anyone suspicious going on at your house
that night. The knife wounds on your wife match one of your kitchen knives. You untied
yourself from the bed and the duct tape came from your garage cabinet. We have no evidence
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">that there was anyone here that night except you and Dottie.”<br />
Mack exploded, “are you accusing me of killing my wife?”<br />
“Yes, we are. You are under arrest.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Put your hands out so we can h</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">andcuff you.”<br />
“You must be kidding!” Mack screamed.<br />
“Put your hands out!”<br />
“NO. I did not do this, we were invaded!”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LaFarge drew his gun. Mack then extended his hands, was handcuffed, and led out of his
house, with the cops locking the front door.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“At least let me turn off the water heater and the air conditioning.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack was put in the police car, given his Miranda warnings, and taken to the County Jail.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, Mark and Jonathan had arrived in Miami, and went straight to the house. Not
finding their father there, called the police to be informed that their father had been arrested
for homicide, and was in jail.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark said, “Do you think Dad could have killed Mom?”<br />
“Dunno, he could have</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">said Jon.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“He was so mean to her, shouting and bullying her. She always wanted to avoid a fight.”<br />
“And he was always looking for one. Let’s make funeral arrangements and then go down to see
Dad at the jail.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">knew his father for what he was, “Let’s just do the funeral arrangements and not go. I
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">really can do without his denials,</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">evincing his conviction that his father killed his mother. Jon
was a thoughtful, sensitive soul, and did not want his thoughts of doubt interfere with what
seemed to be overwhelming evidence.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon reflected a moment, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“ </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I thi</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">nk we have to go down to see him and at least hear him out.”
“Well, OK, but I really have no desire to see him. I think he did it</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark said.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The funeral director sat in his office, behind a muted plain wood desk and wore a dark blue suit
with a black tie, his partly bald pate had his hair slicked with some sort of pomade across his
head, making him look somewhat like he had been </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">anointed with Elmer’s glue</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. The room had
some pictures of green landscapes, mountains and greenery in the distance, and an azure blue
unclouded sky. The office seemed a not unsubtle allusion to a peaceful transition to the
afterlife. The desk had a mini-Torah scroll on it, and a gold pen set with a leather blotter.
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Gentlemen, I am so sorry for your loss,” he greeted them.
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Thank you,” Jon uttered, still not fully believing his mother’s corpse was in a fridge in a nearby
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">room.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Let me show you the selection of caskets.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">He led them into another room and there were many polished, finished caskets, but Jon and
Mark decided on a plain pine box, as the rabbi had suggested, when they had met with him a
bit earlier. A cemetery plot had been purchased at a place in West Miami and the funeral was
to take place in a day or so. Jon paid the funeral director, and the two bereft sons headed
south to the county jail, where their father was awaiting arraignment.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“What took you so long?” Mack said upon greeting his two sons. Mack did not seem distraught,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">there was a certain relief in his face, almost as though nothing had happened.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“We </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">had to make funeral arrangements. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dad, what the fuck happened?” Mark said.<br />
“Don’t use that language with me, you are not too old to get a smack. I don’t </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">like your tone of
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">voice.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack was behind a glass wall and had to use a telephone to speak, so Jon feared not of
fatherly violence, of which he had been a subject of for many years.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Mom’s dead and that is your response?” Jon interjected.
“Yeah, I know, I know.”<br />
Don’t you care?”<br />
“The police said they think you killed her.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack sat silent, not surprised by the statements of his two ungrateful sons, upon whom he had
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">wasted his time. “I suppose you agree with them.”<br />
“We don’t know, “said Jon.<br />
“I ought to smack you in the mouth.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Go ahead, Dad, it won’t be the first time.”<br />
“Get out of here, you un</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">grateful little </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">shits, “ Mack </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">rose in his seat, slammed the telephone
behind the glass window</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, and left the prisoner’s area with the guard following behind.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The next day Jon and Mark went to see Detective LaFarge.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“We think your father killed your mother,” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LaFarge said, outlining the evidence.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I guess he need</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">s a lawyer,</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">said Mark.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Walking out into the Miami heat and humidity, Jon said, “should we go back to the house?”
“Yeh,” Mark responded.<br />
“Remember when we were young, how fearful we were of Dad? I </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">was scared shitless most of
the time. I always thought he was going to hit me. He used to talk about how grandpa used to
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">smack him around. I guess he took a page from grandpa’s playbook.”<br />
“You think?” said Mark. “He used to hit me all the time. It </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">was like living with an animal
trainer.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Mom was so fearful of him also, I don’t know how she put
up with him.”
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“And now she’s dead, probably because of him, or some enemy he made. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She was not
courageous enough to do the right thing for herself. Abused people live in fear and I blame
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">myself for not pushing her to leave,” said Jon.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I can’t really wrap my head around it.”<br />
“Why did she stay with him?”<br />
“Why do you think? Because of us</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. Or maybe she was happier not rocking the boat, or out of
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">fear.” Jon was not </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">sure, and his insides were roiling. He called his therapist, who clearly
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">observed Jon’s ambivalence towards his now dead mother. Jon felt like his insides were turning
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">out, exacerbating his already abused, depressed psyche. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I’m pooped, let’s go get some lunch.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They went to a nearby IHOP. The IHOP was a run-down dive. People sat around waiting for
one waitress who never seemed to appear. The windows were clouded with a grey film of
exterior dirt, and the tables had Formica rimmed with crenelated steel. It was crowded but so
noisy that one could not hear conversation at the next booth. The waitress finally appeared,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">wearing a striped dress and white apron, slightly stained by coffee. “Hi boys, what will we ha</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ve
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">today?”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Coffee, eggs</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">over light and bacon,” Mark responded. “What are you having?” Jon grimaced.
“Wha,” she said. “Well, you said we,” Mark said. She frowned. Jon Grimaced at Mark’s
sarcasm, which completely went over the waitress’ head.<br />
“Me too,” said Jon. The waitress, doughty and about 60 years of age, said, “OK, back in a jif.”
“She’s going to spit in your egg,” Jon murmured.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She slowly waddled off, and clearly the years carrying food weighed heavily upon her as she
weaved through the tables, none of which looked very clean. Her wrinkled, ruddy face revealed
thinly veiled despair. A desperate life, trapped in a job she of which she had had enough. All
around, overweight customers consumed large breakfasts of eggs, pancakes, with faux maple
syrup, muffins and food not worth the calories. It was a scene of middle America, flyover
country right </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">in North Miami Beach, thought Jon. It was one of Mack’s favorite restaurants.
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark was indifferent. But he did remember going often with his dad and mom, and his father
usually having a dispute with someone at the next table or arguing about the service or the
check.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Mark, how scared were you of Dad?”<br />
“Not that much, but I think you were. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He did slap me around, thoug</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">h.”<br />
“I was </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">very fearful.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” Jon said. “ </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I never knew how he was going to react. His fights with my
teachers. His dislikes of girls I was dating, his always glaring disapprovals of anything I did. I
never really knew how to handle him; he was always angry. He always seemed to have some
comment of disapproval. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know why, but I was such a wimp where he was concerned.
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There were so many times I wanted to step in when he was abusing or arguing with Mom. I
guess I took after her </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and didn’t want the conf</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">rontation. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I should have been more assertive.”
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark looked at </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon, “</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Assertive? I think you should have told him fuck off. You know, you should
not have given into him so easily on things that were important to you. Like not inviting people
to your wedding who you cared about because he gave you an ultimatum. What was with that
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">‘him or me’ bullshit? It was so manipulative</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. Dad always was always pissed off one way or
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">another. That’s why your wife doesn’t talk to him. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And now you are mad at yourself, because
you thought you abandoned Mom, but she could have made choices on her own, you know.
The two of them were suited for one another, even though they did not realize it.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Mark, you’re so cold and calculating.”
“Just realistic, and I feel for you</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, brother.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I coped differently,” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">continued Mark, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I don’t wish him to die, but I can’t say I would shed any
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">tears at his funeral. He really is a son of a bitch. I remember grandpa was a mean old fucker
too, who used to slap him around. Never saw him crack a smile. And what about uncle Bart,
the dermatologist? Dad </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">hasn’t spoken </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to him for 40 years because of some twisted
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">competition about Dad’s resentment that Bart did not give enough money to help grandpa and
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">grandma. I spoke to Bart, and he spun a different story. Dad was just jealous that Bart was
more financially successful than he was. Bart never got approval and was happy not to have
Dad in his life. It was all about money. The sooner I got out of that house the better it was for
me. I could not have lived far enough away. And what about Mom? He treated her like shit. I
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">can’t believe she stayed with him.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“She </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">made her choice. Even detesting him she stayed, because she feared the outside world,
or was indifferent to it. Her personality was stilted and </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">narrow.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon listened and knew that Mark was telling the truth.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Now she’s dead </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and he probably had her killed, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">or he did it himself.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark said.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“We have no proof of that.”<br />
“The police think so.”<br />
“I don’t know who would stand up for him. I certainly won’t, I hate him. And in a way I hate
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">her for not standing up for herself</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.”<br />
“But she always put us first..”<br />
“She </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">just let things lie, she d</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">idn’t </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">want to confront him. He was too much of a shit. And now
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">she’s dead </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">probably because of him but we </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">don’t know that for sure.” Jon shed a tear </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">but Mark
did not.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I didn’t </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">want her to sacrifice for me, but still, she made her own bed</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, but I haven’t figured it
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">out. It </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">should have been horrible for her, but I’m not certain that it was. She had coping skills,
almost robotic, that allowed her to stay in Dad’s crucible. I watched her at the dining room
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">table, always grading papers for hours, in order to avoid talking to him.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She had cousins who was always nice to her, and she never even picked up the phone to say
hello to any of them. She had become even more of a recluse than she had been all her life. I
think she liked being alone and he proof is, she had no friends. And Dad cut off family members
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">from her. She had no spine, and neither did I,” Jon lamented.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Let’s go to the house and rest. I am so fucking tired,” Mark said</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. They drove up upper Biscayne
Boulevard, a charmless exaggeration of every middle American city, its palm tree sections
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">interrupted by the insipid gentrification of most of the commercial streets in America, yet still
Floridian, with palm tree and vegetation in some few areas that challenged the constant stream
of big box stores. They arrived at the house of their now dead mother and jailed father and
slept 10 hours.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">V.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack did not particularly enjoy his residence in the county jail, among those who resembled
him more than he could discern. Now in his late 60s, could not physically threaten anyone and
feared for his own self. He called the house, Jon answered.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You need to get me out of here.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I have no control until the arraignment,” Jon responded.
“Have you </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">called any </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">lawyers?”
</span></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yes, and they all want 25 grand to take you on.
“What do you mean, you have a good job.”
“Sorry.”<br />
“Let me speak to Mark,” Mack screamed.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Hold on.”
</span></span></p>
</div>
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">I don’t have the cash.”
</span></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark got on the phone. “Hey.”<br />
“Jon says he does not have the money for a </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">lawyer, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ll pay him back. What about you?’<br />
“You killed Mom. I wouldn’t put up a red cent for you. Get a public defender, and don’t expect
any help from me.”<br />
“You ungrateful shit. Fuck you.”<br />
“Fuck you right back,<br />
“I hope they put you away for life.” Mark slamm</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ed the phone so hard it cracked.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">V.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Arraignments in Florida are pretty brief.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Florida v. Bronstein. Case No. 18</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3637. Will the Defendant please step forward.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack stood up, his public defender beside him.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“How do you plead?”<br />
“Not guilty.”<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The prosecutor, a young woman, Shirley Brown, said</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, “Your honor, the Defendant is an ill</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-
tempered flight risk. He has considerable funds, probably hidden, and has no reason to stay
around for trial. His sons have not offered to assist in his defense and have indicated no
interest in helping him. In fact, they have expressed doubts about his innocence during police
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">interviews. They are not in town.”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p></div></div>
</div>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The public defender, Jack Harkness, barely out of law school, said, “Your honor, the defendant
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">is a member of the Florida Bar, has never had any prior issues and we would request release on
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">his own recognizance.”<br />
“Your honor, this is a heinous </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">murder, and all the evidence points to the defendant</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,” Brown
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">responded.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Bail is set at $</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3,000,</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">000.” The judge banged t</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">he gavel.<br />
Mack, not having the resources to post bail, was returned to his cell.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Neither son attended the arraignment, nor the did they contribute for an attorney. Finally, as
Mack would have it, he was on his own. Three months later, he was tried in front of a mostly
female jury, including four African American women on the charge of first-degree murder.
Mack had fired his public defender, calling him incompetent, conducted his own defense,
figuring he could indirectly testify without being cross examined.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack was convicted.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At sentencing, Mack showed no remorse, no one showed up to speak in his behalf, and he
received a sentence of death by lethal injection. Mack, who had supported the right-wing
governor, appealed to the governor but received no clemency. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s confusion as to how he
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">was denied life, was compounded by the fact that he had given the governor a $10,000
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">campaign contribution, confounding his understanding of his imagination of “how the system
was rigged.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">As Jon had left Miami, he saw how the city had changed. The new towers, the cars speeding
and honking, the new crowds in his old neighborhood. The manicured lawns and people saying
hi to him as he left. It did not seem that any were unhappy that Mack was in jail. Most were
indifferent about Dottie also. He was glad he no longer lived in his neighborhood.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon went home to Philadelphia, to his wife, Judy, suffering pangs of guilt about how he did not
help his father.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Judy, did I do the right thing on turning my back on my father?”<br />
“I don’t know, Jon, he certainly mistreated you. But are you sure he is guilty?”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Well, I talked to the police, but they were so certain. They had all the evidence, the DNA, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">the
gun, the knife, the crime lab stuff. He certainly was a very angry and violent man. He fought
with everyone, and everybody disliked him, including me and even you. You know how he
treated you and why you never wanted to visit. And I understood your reasons. They were
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">valid. I just can’t wrap my head around </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">what has happened. My mother did not deserve to die
such a grisly death.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon called Mark, who had earned a good deal of money in tech and did not seem at all
displeased with the result.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“The prick got what he deserved. He never did anything for anyone </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and treated us and Mom
like shit. How many times do I have to tell you? He was toxic, and I have no feelings except to
say I am glad I will never see him again</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.”<br />
“Come on Mark, that’s so heartless.”
</span></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Jon, he was not a true father, he was an asshole, and </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">the sooner you come to terms with that,
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">the easier it will be for you. I don’t want him to die, but if they give him life without parole, I’m
good. And if he dies, I’ll piss on his grave.”<br />
“Mark, you need to see a therapist.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“No, Jon, I’m fine. It’s yo</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">u who needs the therapist. Dad re</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ally fucked you up.”
“Ok Mark, I understand.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jon was always more forgiving, more empathetic, more tolerant, more understanding of his
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">father, Mark thought, and I guess it’s a good quality to have</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, but it turned him into something
less than he could have been.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">TEN YEARS LATER
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mack’s appeals to all the courts were exhausted, including to the Supreme Court of the United
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">States. Mack had supported in words and voice all of the conservative justices who refused to
commute his sentence.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The guard approached Mack’s death row cell </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">door and </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">said “it’s time.” Mack complained that
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">the last meal was not up to his expectations. He had wanted a corned beef sandwich from
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Katz’s delicatessen flown in from New York. Instead, he got an overcooked steak, fried eggs
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and ice cream.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mack, all the while, protesting his innocence was led to the death chamber, strapped to a
gurney, and the needle inserted into his arm. Mark and Jon did not attend. The only witness
from the family was his cousin Daniel, still seeking a last word of forgiveness from his cousin.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">***
</span></span></p>
</div>
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<p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
</div>
</div>
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<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div><br /><p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-8466942353632177402022-04-05T08:43:00.000-07:002022-04-05T08:43:48.413-07:00Putin the Cat<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Putin the Cat.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Vlad, the cat, looked into the Ukrainian cookie jar and said to himself, “yum, yum. This is going to be a cakewalk, a delightful treat. Those NATO countries have been divided by the useful idiot and now I am going to eat all those delicious, buttery galettes. I’m going to eat them all while everyone is out to dinner, no need to take a bite at the edge. Lenin said, “thrust the bayonet, if you find steel, pull back. If you find soft flesh press forward.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Hitler and Stalin divided Poland in two parts on the 23 of August 1939. This was known as the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact, which Hitler later trashed with his invasion of the Soviet Union, including a part of it--the Ukraine, in 1941, much to the surprise of Stalin, who had starved 3.9 million Ukrainians with his misbegotten plan to collectivize Ukrainian grain and agriculture in the 1930s. Children catching frogs and fish during the famine were dragged into a pit and suffocated. People hiding grain took a slow train to Siberia.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Ukraine, having been part of the USSR, was only subject to Stalin’s madness until the Germans arrived, in 1941, hoping to use it as a breadbasket, furnishing slave labor to fuel the German war effort. On the way, Hitler commenced his killing fields of Ukrainians, Poles, Jews and other <i>untermenschen </i>on his path to<i>lebensraum</i> in the east. Ukraine was the equivalent of a conqueror’s European Grand Central Station.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Now Ukraine is at the crossroads again of a power struggle between Putin’s Russian kleptocracy and Ukrainian nationalism, loosely supported by the West. The destruction has caused an economic nightmare for the Ukrainians and probably the west which will be yoked with the expenses of rebuilding it after Russia has destroyed its infrastructure. The idea of Russia paying reparations for their adventure is like having Jeffrey Epstein babysit your 16 year old granddaughter.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The Russian economy is in tatters, food is scarce in the Russian supermarkets, the oligarchs have lost most of their assets, the Russian people are facing a declining Ruble and nowhere to trade their oil and gas. But statistics say that sanctions only work 15-30% of the time to effect regime change, or a rogue state’s policies. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The Russian experiment with democracy started in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It did not last long. Putin considers the dissolution of the USSR as disastrous as the fall of Rome. Democracy in Russia never really took hold. The first years were like the Wild West. Oligarchs got insanely rich, while the rest of the people were left behind as vassals. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> We thought we won the cold war, “the end of history,” scholars wrote. Authoritarianism has lasted in Russia in one form or another for over 1,000 years. It does not seem to be on the wane. The Czars, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kosygin, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsen, Putin? Who is next in line? Is Russian culture similar in a different shade than Islamic culture, needing generations to change? The contradiction in our minds is that Russian History is rich in cultural accomplishments. Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekov, Tchaikovsky, giants In literature, art, music. So was Germany.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Americans should ask themselves how such leaders emerge from civilized societies? What are the causes of such aberrant historical turns? Economics? Cultural differences? Tribalism? Inequality? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The Ukraine war is a disaster for Putin; he thinks leveling a country of 40 million people who hate him will inure to his benefit. What is he going to do with Ukraine when he wins this war, if he does? Occupy? It is doomed to failure. Putin has neither the money nor the troops to oppress this population, a group of angry Slav brothers who will fight him to the death. This is their homeland, their families have been dispossessed, and their cities ruined. They hate the Russians. Estimates that it would necessitate 500,000 Russian troops to quell continuing insurgencies. The work Ukrainians have done to make their country a modern democracy in tatters, because of a kleptocratic manic. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This begs the question that this may be the part of the incipient cultural revolution—a war among Slavic brothers and cultures.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">NATO is burdened about the question of escalation to World War III. Neville Chamberlain was obsessed with negotiating with Hitler to avoid a repeat of World War I where 42 million died. The fear of war as it resides in the minds of Western leaders may result in an even worse outcome than standing up to the likes of Vladimir Putin. If nuclear weapons have been a deterrent to war, now they seem to be a deterrent to stopping it.<o:p></o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-44672000004551677242021-12-13T17:57:00.002-08:002021-12-13T17:58:27.579-08:00Embryos, Fetuses and Babies<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">American exceptionality does not apply to a woman’s right to choose, except in the most negative of interpretations. The Western Democracies have basically settled this issue, and for the last 50 years we thought we had overcome this contentious pinata. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">If one believes that life begins at conception, the basic argument of the pro-life lobby, then abortion is a sin, an evil, a killing of a potential human being having no choice in the matter. This being will never exist, will never see the light of day, the first suckling of their mother’s breast, their first kiss, their first ball catch, their first love, the warmth of a fireplace, the gentle fall of rain from the heavens. That life has been snuffed out for eternity. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">If you believe that life begins at viability, 28 weeks as delineated in Roe v. Wade, that a woman is entitled to her own choice concerning an unwanted pregnancy, or whose life is at stake, or that the social implications of back-alley abortions outweigh their moral opprobrium, then Roe should be upheld. Poor and disadvantaged, mostly minority women, will be forced to carry a baby to term, even if she is raped, even if the father is absent, even if she cannot afford to put food on the table or milk in the bottle because enraged political tribes, advocating freedom <i>from</i> government, following a distorted social polemic, wish the government to impose carrying a child to term, unwanted, uncared for, and unfed. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">The magnitude of the political implications of the decision have been going round and round for 50 years. Jurists agonize whether the constitution specifies a right to privacy, and whether that right is an “emanation from the penumbra” of it. Valid legal arguments exist on both sides of the issue. And the constitution really is what the Supreme Court of the United States says it is, evolving, textual, or original. As I listened to the arguments advanced by both sides, I was happy that I was not going to decide. No matter the decision, a large portion of the population will vociferously disagree, and like, Donald Trump, will stick around like some enraged toxic cement. Analyzing federalism as a determinant of a woman being able to choose whether to abort early on seems like intellectual masturbation. Both sides present valid legal arguments as we know that the decision will be based on the faux sanctimony of the justices own beliefs, just as it was in Plessy v. Ferguson or in Dred Scott depriving rights, rather than conferring them, as in Brown v. Board of Education, noting that “separate but equal being inherently unequal.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">Clearly, the right answer is illusive and equally clear will be the consequences if Roe is overturned or eroded, or incrementally chipped away. Poor people living in the former confederate states, for the most part will be deprived of the rights set forth in Roe; economically comfortable people will fly to a blue state to get an abortion. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">Ross Douthat, of the New York Times argues that laws preventing abortions have resulted in fewer abortions, buttressing his conventional arguments, that killing an embryo is the killing of a human organism and that women can still find work if they persevere despite childbearing, but mentions nothing about the state providing sustenance for unwanted babies. This agrees with most GOP legislators, be they from Alabama, Mississippi, or Texas. And do not forget our former president, although heaven knows how many abortions he financed. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">Meanwhile Republicans in Congress, still believe that children can carry guns, semi-automatic rifles and large ammo clips to shoot up their schools, kill their classmates, reaping the harvest of death that pro-life advocates decry, with no regard for the social consequences that the prohibitions will evoke. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">The rest of the world, except some authoritarian states in the Mid-East, laugh at the cognitive dissonance of our political class, including a supposedly apolitical Supreme Court of the United States. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; margin: 0in 0in 0.25pt -0.25pt; text-indent: -0.5pt;">We need term limits of 18 years on Supreme Court Justices, and in that way, each President will get two choices for a new Justice, consequently the Stonewalling of a nominee will become more difficult. And Congress should codify national abortion rights, as most of the public favors those rights, despite what they think in Mississippi, Texas and Alabama. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-26084217143188763742021-11-15T07:48:00.001-08:002021-11-15T07:51:09.726-08:00Running from Ennui
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<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Passion seems to be bestowed as a blessing on few people but
seeking it is a not inconsiderable chore conferred on the many.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I am not officially retired, but it seems that way. The clients call less and the work I did as a
trial lawyer has become less and less appetizing. Business has diminished, not only because I
am seventy-nine years of age, but because I have zero desire to market myself
like a snake oil salesman. I leave that particularly
odious practice to well-funded and battle stationed Morgan and Morgan and
others, whose legions of paralegals, investigators, paid experts and
well-staffed soldiers battle with insurance companies, and “fight for you,” its
overworked lawyers all the while complaining to their colleagues and family
that they hate what they do.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Fifty years at the bar, and I do not mean Flanagan’s, is
enough, so I leave the task of transferring wealth from one party to another
and taking a piece of the action the alleged passion of the many. I do still
consult with clients, if I can be of help them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I wonder if I can achieve a modicum of mastery the piano, considering
that when I took violin lessons as a youth, the bandleader working at my dad’s
upstate New York hotel, a Catskill fiddler by the name of Billy Rogers (nee
Rosenberg) who, admittedly, was not a music teacher, told my father, that I was
the “dumbest, most tone-deaf child he had ever met.” But then again, he was no Isaac Stern nor even
a music teacher. Music teachers do not
scream at their beginning ten-year-old students. The sole reason Dad asked him
to teach me was because a guest had left a violin in one of his hotel
rooms. Before my dad’s discovered violin
aspirations for me, I had expressed neither the interest nor the inclination to
play the most difficult, annoying instrument, or torturing everyone within
hearing distance. “Press the strings until your fingers bleed and you develop
callouses,” said Billy. I do not recall what happened to the violin or Billy,
although he was aged in 1952. Dad either
sold the violin or most likely, gave it away.
Another serial disappointment from his son, I guess. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After becoming a lawyer, I decided I would learn to play
tennis. And I loved it. I was addicted. I became reasonably competent, starting
at the age of 35, and playing regularly until I hit 70 and had spine surgery
laying me up a few years. I was never
the best, but I was pretty good, had a good serve and tried to play again a few
years ago, losing to a younger fellow who had been playing just a few years. I
had beaten him soundly before. Never
fast on my feet, my molasses-like movements said, time to hang up the sneakers.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Life is a series of things being taken from you.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At 55 I had taken up golf.
I think I have a pretty good swing, but athletically, I needed time to learn,
( a nice way to say I am a slow learner) and time is running out. Although that would not stop me, if I had
some agreeable companions with whom to play.
Many of the friends whose company I enjoyed have died or fallen
away. There is nothing worse than
spending 18 holes with someone monumentally annoying. “Nice putt,” they said,
as my ball sped past the hole. Plus,
most golfers do not share my politics and, inevitably, an afternoon of
enjoyment turns into a dumpster fire. Most
players who are Republicans, cheat. The
shoe wedge or miscounting the score is a frequently insufferable habitude of
the right-wing selfish, individualist, “let them eat cake” crowd.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now, when my days are not consumed by interminably long
doctor’s visits or some new ailment appears, I am seeking something to do with
my spare time. Going to the hospital or
delivering goodies to the ill and infirm is too depressing, since I already am
depressed about most people walking past me as though I did not exist. I have become irrelevant and invisible, both
not particularly enviable results of my wrinkles and weathered skin and
increasingly whitening hair. A grey ghost.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I suppose I should take comfort that a geezer like Joe Biden
could be president, gaining inspiration from him. But he seems so delicate, so frail now, that
a stiff breeze would blow him over or he might stumble coming down the stairs
of Air Force One. It is frightening to
behold.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Still, Joe beats the alternative--the orange-colored crook
who is still peddling the big lie.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The country is in the worst crisis since the great
depression, and Joe is not FDR.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Which brings me back to the piano. I asked a neighbor who is a music teacher at
an exclusive private school, “Is learning the piano at 79 doable?” He replied, “definitely, it will be good for
your mind. Always keep two hands on the keyboard and learn musical notation.” I replied that I had purchased a book that
said I will be able to play a Bach prelude within six weeks if I practiced 45
minutes per day. Encouraging. I guess I
will find out if it can be my new passion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">David Wieder Nov. 2021<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<!--EndFragment--><p> </p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-33241927145852941892021-09-24T20:25:00.000-07:002021-09-24T20:25:29.306-07:00MV 2021<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">9.21.21<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Martha’s Vineyard is lovely in mid-September. The evenings are cool, yet still comfortable outside, dining in a short-sleeved shirt. We are staying at a house that occupies a prominence of land over the ocean, and the vegetation is still green, scruffy salt-resistant growths that do not resemble their Floridian cousins. The plants do not grow high enough to obscure the view of the sea on this little tip of the western part of the island. The roads are all two lane and there are no traffic lights anywhere. Stop signs govern the passage of traffic, most of which must obey a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. Cyclists further inhibit the time in which it takes to get to Edgartown, the largest village on the Vineyard 25 miles away. Part of our trip there includes a trek down a gravely, ungraded road that tortures the suspension of any car. But it Is worth it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Sitting out on the terrace of this house makes me contemplate the different culture here of the inhabitants, mostly affluent deserters of New York and Boston. Edgartown is a Disneyfied collage of gingerbread houses, dating from the 17<sup>th</sup> and 18<sup>th</sup> centuries, carefully maintained, curated, and restored. Some of it seems to be unreal in its reality, like some Hollywood set prepared for a screwball Katherine Hepburn-Cary Grant rom-com. The stores and restaurants exude a come hither feeling for crustacean-stuffed inside some super fattening butter rolls.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">There are no streetlights on the roads, which host nearby trees that one slip of the wheel could kill. Still, the charm although a bit over the top, beckons one to return. With all its preserved authenticity, it seems surreal and almost disingenuous. Even so, there is no crime to speak of, because thieves would have to take the ferry to escape. Not very practical.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Being here helps to not consider all the problems of America. A rogue who wishes to destroy the rule of law, his enablers in the House and Senate who support his maledictions, and state governors and legislators, who, mounting an outrageous attack upon the franchise of the poor and the uneducated by exploiting the ignorance of their base whose attention span and literacy have now vanished into a fetid sea of social media, populism and tribal feuds, a divisive porridge of animosity, exacerbated by demagoguery. Here, on the Vineyard, it all seems so remote.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I am wondering how this all will end just as those who, in 1860, saw the Union, a house divided, tumbling into a sanguinary Civil war ripping the nation to shreds. Nations are born and die on a rule of law, designed to temper the passions of tribally impulsive inclinations, many of which are genetically violent. Our history is replete with demagogues preying upon the people for their own benefit, enabled by economic hard times and changes in technology.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The old trope of being condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past, is verified by the numerous wars and adventures culminating in failure since the end of World War II. I am not sure that the American public any longer has the capacity to understand the world around them. When so many can believe that suppressing the vote will make the Union better, will provide more democracy, will ensure a better life and keep America white, nationalist and tribal, then we are in for a rough ride indeed. If the Confederacy had won the “war between the states,” what would have been the result? Two nations? One red and one blue? Isn’t that what we have now? Would there have been a civil rights movement in the Confederacy? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Was that bloody war killing 700,000 Americans necessary? While our culture is evolving (for the better), some would argue, not that much. Think about it. A southern confederacy of states based upon slavery existed, at least longer than it should have, and a northern industrial behemoth, outstripping it, also based on divisive wealth and inequality prevailed over a southern agricultural economy, the industry of which was supplying cotton to the mills of the north and to Europe, the upper classes of which profited from slavery in the south and economic servitude in the north. Would that have changed if the Confederacy had survived?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Alternative histories as much as what really happened, are philosophical/political speculations, but they are instructive. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Philip Roth, in his prescient novel, “The Plot Against America” speculates what would have happened if Charles Lindbergh, a Germanophilic, racist Nazi sympathizer had been elected president in 1940, defeating FDR. Jewish boys are sent to work camps, and a rabbi who thinks that he will win personal and political advancement, mistakes patronization and manipulation by Lindberg to him, in order to convince the Jewish community to support Charles Lindbergh. An ironical rabbinic dupe, who through his gullibility misleads his kin into a maelstrom of deceit. At least he was just stupid, not a sociopathic liar. Well, that is for another time.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Now it is time to leave this splendid island and return to Miami Beach the other island in my life, it being filled with diversity, excitement, and at my stage of the game hopefully a better year than last.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-49047312620304630982021-07-12T17:23:00.000-07:002021-07-12T17:23:12.672-07:00A Universe of Chaos<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This past week, my grandson’s close friend and fraternity brother at U Chicago was shot in the neck by a stray bullet, while riding the L from a summer internship in downtown Chicago. A random bullet severed his cervical spinal column. Rushed to the hospital, placed on a ventilator, his family asked him to blink if he wanted to remain on life support. He was alert and his mother, herself a physician, told him he would not be able to eat, talk, or breathe off a ventilator. He responded that if he had to live that way, pull the plug. A rising junior at a solid institution, died a meaningless death.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Recently, a condominium collapsed not far from my home burying alive around 150 people whist they slept. Some of them were religious Jews who probably said a prayer to God before bedtime; some were secular or religious Christians who also said their nightly prayer.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Some of those people attended daily religious services, hoping their prayers would be answered. A friend of mine, deeply religious said she would “pray for them.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The first hurricane of the season has passed by Miami; part of an insensitive, uncaring universe, surrounding us in a web of uncertainty. The hurricane will do damage elsewhere, nature randomly choosing another unfortunate destination. People will pray that it does not hit their location, that it goes elsewhere. But aren’t they indirectly praying that other people suffer instead of themselves?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">If you are a deist, you believe that a force greater than yourself has created a mountain of chaos—the universe where there is no predestination, no plan, only a random lottery that determines where we are born, where our supposed choices take us, what sort of government will govern us, how we do not really understand the choices we make. Like the man who walks down the sidewalk, a plant pot drops from a window above, killing him, or just misses because he has passed by a moment earlier. By some accident of biology, we are born, fortunately not in Afghanistan. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Religion offers comfort to those who believe that prayer will cohere friends around them, and the habit of observing primitive dietary rules will cement their beliefs to a ritual that will strengthen their tribe. Catholics eat fish on Friday and a biscuit that represents the body of Christ. Jews will not eat pork or shrimp or mix meat and dairy, because of rules set forth in a Bronze age text of unknown authorship. Muslims will not eat pork. People belonging to organized religious groups thank whatever god they pray to will answer their prayers which are essentially selfish desires to make them stronger, to be protected in war, for victory over the enemy, to survive disease, to have the courage to move on or to be charitable, to help others, to give them a sense of community. Or does it create a parochialism that either anathematizes them to other communities, makes them different, or a likely scapegoat for people in other tribes? When disaster strikes, they achieve solace in thanking God for sparing them. If they die, loved ones say prayers to strengthen their own resilience. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Does this delusion really create order in a chaotic world? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">If one argues about the survival of Jews, one could conclude that Judaism survived as a result of extraneous hate which prevented them from owning property or land, caused them to become moneylenders because the Church prohibited Christians from charging interest on loans to other Christians. Therefore, Jews were the only ones who could do so, ergo the perverse anti-Semitic trope that Jews were greedy merchants of finance.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I wonder how many people in the Champlain towers said prayers before going to sleep, how many Jewish children of the two million murdered during the Holocaust said “shema Yisrael,” before being gassed to death, incinerated by unspeakably evil people who had been indoctrinated to believe that those children were subhuman rodents--it was their <i>duty</i> to exterminate them. Those Nazis followed their own religion, that of a murderous cult. They did not evolve quickly; their religious indoctrination having followed 2000 years of church liturgy that said Jews were Christ killers, using the blood of Christian children to bake Matzos on Passover. Generations of Jews guilty of the death of Christ, himself born a Jew and dying a Jew. One cannot argue with the cult of Trump. It has become its own abandonment of reason, its own religion. His adherents believe his lies and attend his rallies as though they were a religious service. Jewish Zealots believe that God gave them the land of Judea and Samaria, when it was the British and French promising the and to two disparate peoples at the dissolution of the Ottoman empire which had ruled the land for centuries. The Ottomans picked the wrong side in the First World War. One cannot argue with religion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Human moral codes historically evolved before religion; polytheistic religions were certainly more tolerant than monotheistic, the latter of which is responsible for the <i>a priori</i> negation of other faiths. Organized religion only evolved in the last 5000 years, on the evolutionary scale, an instant, on a geologic scale, a millisecond. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Yet during those 5000 years, it provided the justification for war, pogroms, crusades, charlatans, false prophets, and flocks of lemmings abandoning their sense of reason to hate others. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Granted, religion also aspires for people to be good, love thy neighbor, but has it succeeded? Evangelicals made a Faustian deal with a scoundrel and grifter, because they believed he would appoint a Supreme Court that would enforce an abnegation of the Founder’s strictures of separation of church and state, and that more of the country would join their megachurches, hypnotizing their congregations, compelling the flock to give the preacher a bigger house and a Rolex. Politicians fixated on these beliefs, unctuously cater to these fantasies so they can win elections. They do not understand the framer’s intent: Freedom <i>from </i>religion. Ergo, the thriving of religion in this nation, and aspirational tolerance of others. No state religion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Elites like the brilliant Alexander Hamilton, thought that the common people were not able to govern themselves or devise our financial system, so he did it himself. He did not believe that some supernatural force would do it for him. Nor did he believe that evil would be dispelled by prayer.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Thomas Jefferson said to keep the preachers away from politics. Jefferson understood human frailty and, for his time, thought that the people should govern themselves, but God should be left to theologians, not politicians; the theologians would keep the illiterate masses quiet, including his slaves.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Abraham Lincoln never mentioned the trinity, and some people thought he was a Jew. He was not, but he invoked God in many of his speeches; perhaps he understood that his countrymen were not yet ready to liberate themselves from superstition so biblical allusions provoked loyalty in constituents or contributed profundity to his utterances. Or perhaps he was a deist as many at the time accused him.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Religion is an excellent germination point for hypocrisy; giving those who profess it the opportunity to manipulate the flock, to incite people not to think for themselves or develop their own philosophy of life. That is--to think for themselves. They demagogy of theology. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">As science advances exponentially, religion has become more and more irrelevant, more difficult to reconcile with reality. A majority of young people today do not attend religious services. They engage in the new religions of Sports, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tinder. They seek meaning in a life that many find meaningless. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4777917788300730378.post-90772664636645639862021-06-18T17:28:00.001-07:002021-06-18T17:29:45.888-07:00The Runaway Train<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Been wondering lately about all the haters, negativists, half-baked opinionators, talking heads of whom I have become wretchedly weary in these days of almost post pandemic and post Trumpian cauchemars.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Been thinking about the early days of the Republic when there were no restrictions on immigration. Actually, immigration was uncontrolled until 1921. Whoever wanted to come could. They faced sweatshops, unrestricted child labor, and unremitting social Darwinism. These immigrants, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Greek, German, and others all were white, and mostly able to read and write, enjoyed stable family structures upon which to build a semblance of a free life. Let them come again, but they stood on the shoulders of those who came before.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">They, and the backs of slaves built this country. “Manifest destiny” was a euphemism for stealing land from native Americans and Mexicans. Although whites faced discrimination, they did not inherit the bones of Jim Crow as is manifested still by those who oppose the teaching of “critical race theory,” falsely claiming that it is teaching blacks to be racists, to hate whites. This is simply a bold-faced lie as wretched as the lie that that the capitol insurrection was “just a small riot,” as averred by such “patriots” as Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, all of whom supported the big lie and charge Democrat racism based upon a rejection of historical fact.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">African American immigrants arrived in slave ships, were sold into bondage, their families separated by slavers, who sold children, mothers, sons and fathers to different masters. This stain on our history is comparable to the most unspeakable of human crimes. This grotesque history belies the premise that “all men are created equal.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Now we are engaged in a possible transmogrification of our republic to a frightfully totalitarian dystopia, having a large portion of the population actually believing the ravings of a demented madman, that the election of 2020 was stolen from him, undermining the essential character of our Republic—free and fair elections. GOP efforts abound in Republican legislatures to suppress the vote with restrictions aimed at minorities.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">When President Biden met Mr. Putin this week in Geneva, Putin shamelessly argued the false equivalence that the insurrection at our capitol, killing 5, trying to send even lickspittle Mike Pence to be hanged, wounding others and threatening senators with death if they did not overturn the will of the people by returning Trump to the White House. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Illustratively, Putin’s imprisonment of a political opponent he had poisoned unsuccessfully, successfully murdering other opponents, we see “How Democracies Die,” as the noted political historian Timothy Snyder of Yale has written. The big lie is happening here, just as in Putin’s Russia.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">It is not only the rule of law that protects us, but also the respect for the norms of democracy that bind us together. Think about Weimar Germany and the rise of Hitler, who was democratically elected but incrementally turned the nation of Beethoven, Schiller, and Wagner to a nation of hate and murderous rage against helpless men, women and children.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Leadership matters, as Philip Roth documented in his monumental work, “The Plot Against America,” wherein a Nazi sympathizing Charles Lindbergh becomes President of the United States defeating Franklin Roosevelt, resulting in totalitarian overtones of fascism, sending Jewish children to workcamps.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The question that must be asked of all thinking people of whatever caste or persuasion, whatever socio-economic status, is what they would do to prevent an economic and political catastrophe or which policies would best serve our nation. Certainly, Mitch McConnell sees none, his Machiavellian breast to argue in the next election that Biden “did nothing.” Democrats must deliver, abolish the filibuster, before it is too late. Use the power now, because it is fleeting.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln famously said. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">We fell into a bloody civil war. Brother against brother, father against son, families torn asunder, a war killing more than 700,000 on the bloody battlefields of Antietam, Manassas, Gettysburg and Chattanooga, among others. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And if we look back, this war took from 1787 until 1860 to develop. The original three fifths compromise, the Missouri compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska act. All attempts to place a band aid over gangrene. We face far greater challenges than how states would be admitted to the Union; we face a changing climate, international competition, rising authoritarianism, and we are anxious, depressed. Jim Crow is alive, still.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">If, however, identity politics caused wars, it was the economic causes engendered by religion and prejudice that lit the fire. This tribal notion of “others” stealing our homes, our dignity and our fortunes certainly caused more war than religious disputes alone. These two shibboleths are inherent in the human psyche. Identity politics is the bête noir of society. Until we have overcome these demons there will be no peace. But the bad news is that cultures change very slowly; we are in a culture infused war both internally and worldwide.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">One thing for sure, stilted propaganda TV is not helpful. And we are not even sure that education makes a difference. People may not agree on policy, but if they cannot agree that the sun shines during the day, we are on a runaway train without Denzel Washington to put on the brakes.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Wiederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09032348962797943882noreply@blogger.com1